NCR has today announced the appointment of Elton Birden as managing director of the UK, Ireland and Nordics for NCR Corporation. In this newly created role he will be responsible for leading the technology company in the region as it extends its focus beyond the financial services and retail industries into new travel, healthcare, hospitality, entertainment and gaming and public sectors.
Prior to joining NCR Birden headed up IBM's Business Process Outsourcing group in the Financial Services Sector across Europe. Previously he spent over 20 years working at Unisys in general management, sales leadership, client management and service delivery roles. This included the position of Managing Director of a Business Process Outsourcing company in the Netherlands owned by Unisys.
Birden commented, "It is an exciting time to be joining NCR. The company has an innovative portfolio of solutions which can help to increase operational efficiencies, reduce labour costs and improve customer service capabilities. This means we can help organisations mitigate the effects of the downturn and also position them to gain market share, increase sales and boost profits quickly when times begin to improve."
NCR, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, is best known for pioneering the cash register and the automated teller machine (ATM). Today it continues to meet customer demand for fast, easy and convenient service channels across a growing range of sectors, helping organizations to increase revenues and customer loyalty and lower their operational costs.
NCR has been the ATM market leader for 22 years - a service channel so well accepted by consumers that it now handles 80 per cent of all transactions at best-in-class banks. NCR also helps financial institutions redesign their branches to migrate routine transactions, such as deposits, to self-service devices, improve the efficiency of tellers with cash recycling units and free up staff to increase product sales.
NCR is also able to increase retail productivity levels with its assisted service, self-service and store business consultancy solutions. Retailers in the UK and Ireland have deployed NCR self-checkouts, which more than double the number of service points instore, at a faster rate than their European counterparts to help reduce queuing and speed up service times. The UK's top three retailers use NCR self-checkouts. One British supermarket group has even rolled out the technology to all its stores nationwide. Danish and Swedish retailers have also begun deployments in recent months.
Birden sees the healthcare kiosk market as having strong prospects for growth in the UK due to the focus on improving patient communications and choice. NCR is the market leader in this emerging healthcare self-service sector in the US, providing kiosks and mobile phone services which enable patients to 'check in' for hospital appointments, answer questionnaires, receive targeted health information and lab results and locate the correct department on large, complex campuses.
NCR is also the world leader in the provision of self-service travel solutions, boasting eight out of ten airlines as its customers according to Forrester Research. NCR's solutions enable cost-conscious consumers to elect to upgrade where they see the value, for example purchasing excess baggage allowances using a touchscreen or mobile phones whilst they are checking in. Birden suggests overcrowded airports in Northern Europe have significant potential to benefit from these revenue-generating solutions, which are complemented by a range of hotel and car rental self-service solutions.
NCR new managing director will also head up NCR's outsourced IT helpdesk and managed services organisation in the UK. With a global network of 24/7 customer care centers and more than 13,000 service professionals worldwide, NCR Services ensures IT solutions are available when and where customers they need them.
Birden concluded, "NCR provides a single point of accountability to drive increased system availability, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and more time for organisations to focus on their core business issues. In addition, our focus on remote diagnostics and fixes and preventative maintenance can help to significantly reduce IT services costs which is more important than ever to organizations in Northern Europe."