UCS Group has announced that it has acquired the whole business of petrol retail specialists Branch Software in a multi million Rand deal, making UCS by far the best positioned and most comprehensive provider of petrochemicals retail solutions in South Africa. Branch Software is both a development house and a solutions implementation company, specialising in point of sale (POS) and back office environments for garage forecourts and convenience retail stores.
"UCS has rapidly grown into a retail technologies giant, with solutions for virtually every aspect of the retail and logistics industry, reaching from an individual point of sale in a high-fashion boutique right through to direct integration into the supply chain of large consumer goods manufacturers," said Neil Michelson, COO of UCS Group Limited. "With the acquisition of Branch Software, we are now uniquely placed in the petrochemicals industry. UCS had already started making strong inroads into the convenience stores in garage forecourts. Now we are able to tie it all together in a seamless whole that brings together fuel sales and retail operations."
Branch Software`s technology includes considerable intellectual property in interfacing information systems with the various types of fuel pumps used in garage forecourts, as well as in the tagging technology that links a specific pump attendant with each transaction. When combined with UCS` other retail technologies, this creates an unbeatable combination, where garage owners can have a complete, integrated view of every part of their business.
"Becoming part of the UCS Group now is perfect in terms of where Branch Software wants to be. While we have technologies that are industry leading, we needed the support and resources of a large partner to allow us to get into the large corporate deals that we were previously excluded from. We also gain access to other technologies and expertise from within the UCS Group," commented Clive Gillespie, MD of Branch. "Our product is running in 800 sites around South Africa at the moment, and we expect this to ramp up dramatically."
The UCS Group strategy is to be number one in every retail industry vertical it operates in, from specialist retail to large-scale mass-market operations. "We now have access to a much deeper skills base in the oil industry, with a great deal of understanding of the business issues unique to it," explained Michelson. "With UCS now being the leading software player in the oil industry in SA, we`re looking to leverage off this to grow into other oil companies in SA and Africa. They are sitting up and taking notice - we`ve already had a number of contacts from major players," he concluded.
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