Finland’s largest and most versatile recreation centre, Särkänniemi, has been using the Winpos POS system for six years. The collaboration has worked well and the system is continuously developed further.
Särkänniemi adventure park in Tampere consists of five units: the amusement park, the aquarium, the planetarium, Näsinneula tower and the Doghill theme park. In the summer of 2012, the world’s first Angry Birds Land was opened and in the summer of 2013 the Doghill zoo opened its doors. There are also several kiosks and restaurants, i.e. Restaurant Näsinneula. In addition to this, the centre includes SuperPark Särkänniemi, which was opened in 2016 and Sara Hildén’s art museum, which is maintained by the city of Tampere.
– Within the recreation centre area, there are 57 fixed and 13 mobile POS terminals in various environments, such as ticket sales points, restaurants, shops, kiosks and prize games. The POS system is used also by our financial administration to register sales. The Winpos system is distributed on multiple servers to balance the workload of the system, says Mari Leino, who is an IT-expert at Tampereen Särkänniemi Oy, and continues:
– In integrations we use a separate integration server, which the Winpos system is also integrated with. Currently, product information is transferred from the POS system to our webshop, while sales information is transferred from the webshop to the POS system. The POS system is also integrated with an accounting software and a separate sales reports system.
The basic use of the POS terminals is simple and the training is facilitated by the possibility to use a training mode, in which you can experiment with different combinations and transactions without generating any actual sales. This lowers the threshold to start selling for real
– Every summer we hire about 400 seasonal employees, of which ca 100 use the POS system. User trainings are function-specific, because the system is used quite differently in different places, such as ticket sales or restaurants. The basic use of the POS terminals is simple and the training is facilitated by the possibility to use a training mode, in which you can experiment with different combinations and transactions without generating any actual sales. This lowers the threshold to start selling for real, Leino says.
The most important features of the system are user-friendliness, flexibility and reliability. Especially reliability is essential in an environment like ours, where everything has to function smoothly during the season
– The most important features of the system are user-friendliness, flexibility and reliability. Especially reliability is essential in an environment like ours, where everything has to function smoothly during the season. We have to generate results in av very short period of time and therefore it is absolutely necessary that all systems work. When I talk about flexibility, I mean that the system has to be able to adjust to possible operational changes. For example the names of the sales points can change every year, and it has to be easy to change them in the system as well, Leino says.
The future of Särkänniemi looks bright and operations are constantly expanding and developing. In the summer of 2018, Särkänniemi’s new affiliate FunZones Oy opened the first Zones by Särkänniemi indoor amusement park in Ideapark. Also the new indoor amusement park uses the Winpos system.
– In the future, we hope to be able to develop a system specifically for Särkänniemi in collaboration with Winpos. We want to enable new functionalities and develop the system to meet our needs even better through flexible interface solutions.
- 57 POS
- 13 Mobile POS
- sarkanniemi.fi
