Allied Carpets lays down new approach to IT

Allied Carpets has overhauled its IT systems across its headquarters and 222 stores around the UK.

The company turned to IBM to consolidate all the data in shop servers into two virtual servers at the company's Orpington headquarters in Kent.

The new system works on terminal services using thin clients in all stores nationwide. Terminal services allow Allied Carpets to run any Windows application from centralised servers to any of its stores.

Ken Moss, IT manager for Allied Carpets, told silicon.com: "We'd been telling the execs for two-and-a-half years that terminal services and virtualisation would be a good idea.

"We had some problems. We had to tweak the system but nothing that couldn't be sorted out in a day."

The company believes it can achieve at least £1m of extra income this year through improved customer service, stock control and a reduction in ordering times by 50 per cent.

The project was managed by Panacea Services, an IBM business partner. It piloted the system in seven stores (three in England and four in Northern Ireland).

Other benefits of the system include electricity cost-savings of around £70,000 per year, the company said, because of the eradication of store servers.

Other applications planned for future rollout include controlled mobile access to electronic point of sale devices and real-time product information access for shop staff.