ppm factum, a.s. is a strong marketing company that prides itself most on the quality of services across all its divisions (merchandising, promotion, retail audit, market research). For this reason, one of the main priorities is to keep up with the times and plan future investments that will make it possible to keep our services at the highest level. "The method of retail audit gathering information by hand and then transcribing it into a computer system is antiquated. We need modern and powerful barcode scanner tools to ensure quality and fast data collection is achieved.  A device must meet a number of requirements, not only from clients’ perspective but also from our employees, "said Michaela Mazánková, Key Account Director in the Retail Audit Department.

The fact that the device must have a scanner, a fast processor and the ability to connection to a 4G network is taken for granted and does not surprise anybody. However, finding a specific device for the auditor's work that will:
•  have sufficient memory to store the necessary amount of data and photos that are collected daily within the Retail Audit division, and at the same time this amount of information will not slow down the device and crash the application;
•   have the battery capacity so that the auditor can work all day which includes the use   of a scanner, without having to interrupt his/her work and wait for the device to recharge;
•    be of an acceptable size and weight to fit the PDA comfortably in one hand and allow the auditors to work all day;
•    be manufactured by a reliable and high-quality producer;

It is no longer such an easy task as it might seem at first glance. "It's good to know what you expect from the device, but you also have to plan for the future. After all, this is not a small investment and it will have to meet high demands across the next several years” said Michaela Mazánková.

After careful and long selection, ppm factum, a.s. decided to use Zebra as a supplier, specifically the Zebra TC 56 model, which meets all the requirements for new equipment in the Retail Audit department. What benefits does the new device bring to the company, especially to its clients? They have gained faster remote connections from the devices to their internal servers, therefore they are able to send data even faster than before and so the final data reaches their clients sooner. They maintain their highly set goals for quality of service, as they can continue to track their auditors' GPS, ensuring that data is collected at a pre-arranged location. Thanks to more memory and a more powerful processor, they can continue to use all their controls that they use during individual data collections (monitoring the price deviation from the expected price; requesting photos in predefined situations and many others).

The Retail Audit Division has been making full use of the equipment in its daily work for several months now and all our employees are extremely satisfied that the management of ppm factum, a.s. decided to make the investment. The new PDA has accelerated the actual work of the field auditors, but has also reduced the involvement of technical support, as the number of problems with the original scanners, has been minimized.