GK Software releases GK/Retail 12 with new tech for retail store automation

SCHOENECK, Germany — GK SOFTWARE AG has announced the immediate availability of GK/Retail 12, the newest release of its Store Automation suite of products, which the company calls a quantum leap in store automation functionality to support customer-centric store operations.

According to a news release, GK/Retail 12 represents a major architectural shift that supports a more flexible component-based technology model. Utilizing the constructs of ABC technology, the individual software components are encapsulated from each other and communicate via defined interfaces. ABC provides full service-oriented architecture capabilities, allowing for easy integration of GK/Retail with other applications and quickly adding new software components or subsystems. With GK/Retail customers can now deploy components of the software in a distributed model to improve performance and utilize the benefits of a lean store architecture.

GK software is one of the first to support the Retail Transaction Interface schema developed by an ARTS work team, the first SOA service interface schema and technical specification for the retail industry. With RTI GK/Retail, POS transaction functions are available as SOA services and reused for other customer and associate touch points including customer loyalty, self-checkout, kiosks, Web shopping, mobile technology and other complementary solutions.

GK/Retail 12 is packed with features that provide rapid customer-centric processes to improve the customer experience in the stores, according to the release. Customer-centric transactions including gift cards, gift certificates, coupons, customer returns, customer loyalty and signature capture are engineered to be efficient and easy for the associate to learn and use. GK/Retail 12 has been enhanced to offer the widest range of integrated solutions related to customer service and customer loyalty including self-checkout operations, cross channel integration, mobile retailing and mobile payments. To offer a broader range of features to support complete store automation, GK/Retail 12 includes a new integrated digital signage feature that allows corporate headquarters to manage and transmit digital content to unlimited output devices throughout the store landscape.

GK/Retail 12 supports the latest version of Java 2 Enterprise Edition to take advantage of many new features and improved security provided by the platform. The solution supports the latest version of all major operating systems, databases and application servers to give the retailer flexibility and benefits of a low total cost of ownership. GK/Retail 12 is fully PCI-DSS compliant.