Sales, Marketing & Operations Strategies - Brink's US

Sales, Marketing & Operations Strategies
MARCH 2007

COVER STORY
Keep On Armored
Truckin’
Brink’s, Incorporated is bringing new services to
retailers that bring the bank closer to the store.
Top management at Brink’s, Incorporated is focusing
not at the company’s last 150 years but its next 150,
with ground-breaking initiatives that include cuttingedge
technologies and precedent-shattering partnerships.
A subsidiary of The Brink’s Company, Brink’s,
Incorporated is a global leader in business and security
services, delivering customized secure logistics solutions to
help companies manage their cash supply chain. Brink’s
offers transportation, secure currency and coin processing,
inventory management, document destruction and cash
management solutions.
The firm, headquartered in the U.S. in Coppell, TX, also
markets a full range of secure logistics solutions and technologies,
including cash processing, ATM services, web information
tools, cash in transit and the Brink’s CompuSafe ®
Family of Services. Brink’s is the largest armored car company
in the U.S., operating over 250 branches and 2,300 armored
vehicles across the nation. It is also the largest provider of
coin-processing services.
Since Brink’s retail solutions combine secure transportation
with cash management services, they can provide
retailers with accelerated funds availability, streamlined
operational processes, and visibility and control over
cash handling.
PAST AND FUTURE
The company has a rich heritage of innovation:
• It introduced its CompuSafe Service in 1998 as the industry’s
first closed-loop cash management system for cashintensive
retail businesses. CompuSafe is a cash-handling
solution that takes cash out of retailers’ hands. Cashiers
simply insert currency into one of the Brink’s CompuSafe
intelligent safes, where it is securely stored until a Brink’s
armed guard or armored truck picks it up and takes it to a
Brink’s vault facility for processing and deposit. The service
limits the amount of cash in registers, as well as on-site
counting and recounting of cash.
• In 2004, Brink’s pioneered The Brink’s iCash system, a

sophisticated cash vault
processing system based
on central database technology.
• Brink’s iDeposit, a webbased
deposit-creation
and tracking tool, eliminates
manual deposit
preparation and paper
tickets for improved productivity,
efficiency, and
accuracy. The system
combines armored
transportation with technology-based
information
tools to create a cash
management solution
that increases efficiencies,
expedites funds
availability and improves
cash flow. Users simply
input deposit amounts
by denomination, print
the automatically generated
deposit ticket, and
seal the ticket inside a
tamper-evident bag
along with the cash. The
system can be accessed
from any phone or
Internet-enabled computer,
with no software
to install or buy.
A TIME OF CHANGE
The past year was a “very
good” one for Brink’s,
Incorporated, says Fred
Purches, the company’s
senior vice president for
strategic solutions and product management. It was also a
time of continued change.
“There are a lot of changes going on in the industry, and
I’m referring to the industry that typically handles retailers’
cash,” he notes. Those changes involve banks, armored car
companies and checks. Together, says Purches, they “are creating
a lot of opportunities for retailers to save money in the
way that they handle cash.”
“One of the things that is happening, and which retailers
have begun taking good advantage of, is that banks are
starting to expand their footprint through so-called virtual
vaults,” says Purches.
The term “virtual vault” is actually a bit of a misnomer.
Banks traditionally operate
their own cash vaults. With
“virtual vaults” they establish
relationships with
armored carriers to run
vaults for them outside of
their normal footprint.
This is important to
retailers because it allows
them to consolidate their
banking relationships.
Larger retailers operating
across several regions may
maintain as many as 250 or
300 banking relationships
because they use whichever
bank is located closest to
their outlets. The growth of
virtual vaults allows them
to consolidate that number
down to as few as five—or
fewer—relationships.
Another trend that continued
to evolve throughout
2006, Purches says,
involves the way checks are
handled. Legislation
passed in 2005 allows
checks to be imaged.
“Some of the benefits of
that also started to make
themselves available to
retailers during 2006,” says
Purches, “and that will continue
in 2007.”
TECHNOLOGY AND
PARTNERSHIPS
Brink’s strategy this year is
to use technology—and to
develop partnerships with other suppliers—that can help to
make cash- and check-handling more efficient. For one
thing, armored car carriers in general, and Brink’s in particular,
are developing partnerships with banks.
“In the past, you would have armored carrier selling you
transportation and the bank selling you depository services or
bank accounts,” Purches says. “Now you have armored carriers
and banks coming together in selling better solutions.”
One of them, unique to Brink’s, is the Brink’s iDeposit,
which he describes as “essentially an online deposit ticket.”
Store managers use it like this: a store logs into Brink’s computer
system and fills out a deposit slip: how many singles,
fives, tens, etc. When they submit that deposit slip, the sys-

BRINK’S, INCORPORATED
tem notes the date and
time that it was created,
and prints out an 8.5-
by-11-inch piece of
paper which is essentially
a bar-coded
deposit slip. The retailer
includes it with his normal
deposit, and a
Brink’s truck will collect
it along with its regular
pick up. The barcode is scanned back at the Brink’s facility,
again noting the amount, date and time, and the money gets
processed.
“The interesting thing is that we have partner banks that
are crediting customer accounts on a same-day basis,” says
Purches. “The traditional methodology is that the retailer
would get credit for that money the next day—the day after it
was picked up.” This system allows them to get credit the
same day cash is picked up, and lends a greater degree of
transparency to deposits.
“They can look at all their stores, see the date and time that
a deposit was created, what time they got to the vault, what
time they were processed, and if there were any discrepancies,”
Purches says. “For example, if the store said there was
Industry changes “are
creating a lot of opportunities
for retailers to
save money in the way
that they handle cash.”
$1,000 but there was really
only $500 when we
counted it, they would
be able to see that pretty
quickly.”
The procedure essentially
gives a retailer a
real-time view of his
deposit process and
immediate red flags in
case of discrepancies.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” says Purches. “It lends visibility
to things, but it also gives them quicker credit.”
Brink’s is also doing exciting things with its CompuSafe
product, which was originally designed for the convenience
store market. “That is an environment with high turnover
and high theft rates,” says Purches. “The way they handle
cash in the convenience store traditionally is: every time the
register gets over ‘X amount,’ say $100, they will take the
extra cash and put a paper clip around it with a piece of
paper that says, ‘Fred dropped $60,’ and they will put it in a
safe. At the end of the day, or the next day, the manager
opens up the safe, takes out all of those envelopes, goes in
the back room and counts them. The manager spends a lot
of time doing that, and there can be complications such as
— Fred Purches, svp, strategic solutions and product management

COVER STORY
BRINK’S, INCORPORATED
discrepancies that can take hours to resolve.”
CompuSafe “is essentially a safe with two bill acceptors
in it, just like you would find in a vending machine,”
Purches explains. “Instead of the paper and the paper clip,
the clerk can take the money and simply stick it into one of
those bill acceptors.” The acceptors read, count and stack
the bills in locked cassettes. Brink’s personnel pick up the
money for processing and deposit it in their bank. The contents
of the safe are guaranteed. “So essentially as soon as
they put that money in their safe they don’t have to worry
about it anymore.”
A new version, called CompuSafe 4000, serves as a
high-volume bill acceptor, taking as many as 150 notes
at a time, which are fed in stacks. “It’s the same principle,
it just works in a different environment,” says
Purches. The unit is designed for supermarkets and
other high-volume retailers.
CompuSafe 4000 utilizes a heavy-duty safe with an easyto-use
touch-screen interface to read and verify 16 bills per
second. It interfaces seamlessly with POS and back-office
systems to automate the cash-handling process and virtually
eliminate exposure to theft and shrinkage.
BANKING ON CHANGE
Brink’s has also updated the way it works with banks. “Traditionally
in a CompuSafe you pick up every other day and the
credit for that money will follow the day after we picked up,”
says Purches. Some of the banks that are now partnering with
Brink’s will credit customer accounts based on the money in
the safe at the end of a day.
“If you think that through,” he explains, “what you have done
is essentially moved the bank into the store. The retailer puts
the money in the safe, and at the end of the day that money
shows up on their bank statement. Then we come by and we
will pick it up, take it back to our facilities and process it. That’s
an exciting and interesting product for us.”
Yet another new initiative from Brink’s involves a strategic
alliance with “a major shipping company,” says
Purches. The new service, which is scheduled to be officially
launched later this year, will allow Brink’s to ship limited
amounts of cash—less than $5,000—through the shipper’s
network. Brink’s maintains an operation at the potential
partner’s consolidation point.
“One of the challenges…is for retailers to justify the cost of
an armored transportation service,” says Purches. “This is kind
of a middle-of-the-road solution: it is less expensive than an
armored car but still allows the retailer the benefit of their store
managers not having to travel to the bank and the time and
risk associated with doing that.”
Also, it allows them to consolidate their banking relationships.
They can, Purches notes, “essentially have one
bank account at the end of the day, and there is technology
that is bundled around that, too: the same kind of concept
we talked about with Brink’s iDeposit, where they can
see it tracking through that process.”
There is, Purches re-emphasizes, “a lot of change going on in
the industry right now. We have historically taken the approach
that we want to do everything ourselves. One of the things that
changed is that we are now recognizing that we can’t do everything.
We need to select the first-rate partners that have expertise
in different places, and then develop products in conjunction
with them. The banks and the shipping company are
examples of that, as are the safes. We used to make those ourselves,
but now we have manufacturing partners.”
Such strategic alliances will almost certainly prove to be
the key to addressing still larger changes on the road ahead.
(#13958) Reprinted from the March 2007 issue of Retail Supplier. Copyright 2007 Ideal Media.
For more information about reprints from Retail Supplier, contact PARS International Corp. at 212-221-9595.