SPAR was set up in the UK in 1957 with five founding wholesale members. The business is now made up of six wholesale members servicing more than 2,600 stores. We also employ over 50,000 people in the UK.
Following an early career in telecommunications in Fleet Street and the London Stock Exchange Roy took his IT skills to the Retail Sector. Now after too many years than he cares to recall Roy is with SPAR UK Ltd where he has been for over 20 of those years and holds the position of Retail IT Controller, SPAR have over 2,500 UK convenience stores. In 2007 Roy was voted “European Retail IT Professional of the Year” of which he is very proud.
Roy has overseen the development of the organisations EPoS solution migrating it from proprietary solutions to SPAR’s own solution SPARPoS, a “Progress Software” based EPoS solution developed in partnership with Business Computer Projects with whom SPAR has worked for many years.
Roy says SPAR must now look toward the future requirements of its retail business and the need to encompass new and emerging technologies within its development strategy, with these objectives in mind SPAR have embarked on the development of SPARPoS-TC a “thin-client” version of their current robust and successful EPoS solution. Once again SPAR have chosen to partner with Business Computer Projects, the development started in January 2011 and is estimated to take 15 months to develop.
SPAR is a ‘symbol’ group, which means individual SPAR members retain their independence but enjoy the advantages of belonging to a global brand. SPAR members reap the benefits of being part of a large international organisation with collective buying and marketing power, a strong corporate image and impressive back-up resources.
