Xpresso Communications Sit-Down:
RCH Group President Stefano De Pra on Preliminaries to Innovation

We met Stefano de Pra at EuroCIS 2019 who shared with us his impressions about the show and the fundamentals of innovation.

EuroCIS 2019: highlighting a positive trend

I must say I’m really impressed – I did not expect so many people visiting us. If I had known that, I would have booked a larger stand. To be serious, it’s been a really good tradeshow. And not only for us, the feedback in general is very positive.

I’m very happy that exhibitions are attracting such a big audience. Some years ago, visitors were decreasing and therefore many companies reduced their investment in booth space.
EuroCIS might then indicate a recovering trend, a renaissance in tradeshows.

Tradeshow are essential in providing a feedback from users and business partners; they also represent the ideal place to announce new products, measure your level of innovation and the acceptance of new products. Your audience at sshow provides an immediate and valuable feedback that can lead to important changes and future product improvement. This is the dynamic I appreciate the most when interacting with visitors and partners at shows.

RCH is at the forefront of the smart revolution

It’s all about smart solutions. Our Android solution is in high demand. Nowadays, you have to think of POS solutions in a different way. Think of the evolution of smartphones, for example. Today, we are using smartphones for so many different applications that no one thought of when they first came to the market.

The same applies to POS solutions. With a smart solution in place, you might change the whole experience, and you don’t know where this journey will take you in the future.

At RCH, we want to be at the forefront of the smart revolution. We envision a simple system showing revenues and expenditures at the touch of a button. A simple system that is highly scalable and can be used by shops of all sizes. We believe that cash registers will evolve, like smartphones did, and enable anything which is today still unthinkable.

Focus on customers and details

My father taught me one concept: Focus on the customer. I enjoy listening to customers, getting their feedback and creating solutions that meet their needs. It’s about supporting customers in their daily work.

It’s also about investing in new products and improving the existing ones. It’s about keeping a constant interaction with customers and monitoring how they are using your solutions. Let me give you an example: when I go for a coffee to a little place around the corner, I would watch the owner working with our system and see what is already working well and what needs to be improved. I am talking about focusing on details that can improve the efficiency of our customers operation. Modifying for example the size of a monitor or the design of the cash drawer would stem from this attention to details.

The focus on customers and their needs plays an important role also in our investment in innovation and leadership in the POS evolution. I compare POS systems to digital media devices, like smartphones or smart TVs, in terms of their ceaseless evolution. Staying in touch with your users will help you identify potential problems and create the best solutions.

I am highly interested in math and I once had a math teacher who applied the same principle: You have a problem and you wish a solution. Seek and find the most original way to solve the problem. This is how we work at RCH. We identify the problem, envision the result and design the solution.

Our problem-solving and solution-based mindset is reflected in our three core values: Innovation, reliability and design. The interconnection of these three elements delivers a successful outcome.

International expansion

We are a leading company in the Italian POS market. Our job is to understand the needs and which needs pertain to the different markets. Solutions respond to needs and these might be different in other countries. Our international expansion is in fact based on targeting and taking into consideration the cultural, economic and societal needs of other countries.

Future plans

We will keep on working with the same passion as we have been doing for 50 years. We’ll embrace the challenges of leadership and keep the focus on our customers.