This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine, Nov/Dec 2006's FOCUS.
Wincor Nixdorf International in August signed its first deal of exclusivity with a U.S. financial institution. The mid-tier FI, Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. of Lititz, Pa., is now supplied solely by Wincor for hardware, software and services. The deal not only includes the bank's ATM fleet but all its branches as well.
The move marks a turning point for Wincor in the United States, says Julia Waugh, Wincor USA's director of marketing.
"The deal is very important for us," she said. "They are the first fully Wincor customer in the U.S. — they're taking the whole package from us."
Wincor sees the deal as a way to strengthen its U.S. presence and recognition, said Bill Waugh, Wincor USA's vice president of engineering. But it also benefits Susquehanna, which had a hard time finding a vendor that would customize solutions to meet its changing needs.
"We have more of a partnership with them," Waugh said. "So it's above and beyond a typical vendor relationship. We assist them and they assist us. Having all of us sitting together in a room helped us build solutions together."
Finding a partner
Susquehanna, with $8.3 billion in assets and 167 branch locations in the mid-Atlantic, had been a Wincor customer for a number of years before signing the August deal. "They liked our products a lot, like our software architecture," Julia Waugh said.
But Wincor came to the table with some outside-the-box solutions that helped Susquehanna break its ATMs from their shells.
Simply put: "We met their needs," Julia Waugh said.
Wincor provides the bank with 170 ATMs, including full-function interior, through-the-wall and drive-up ATMs. Wincor also has installed its Windows-based ProCash multivendor software solution with Web extensions — a solution that allows the bank to run ATMs from multiple vendors and paves the way for the launch of new ATM transactions down the road. And with Wincor's ProView monitoring and management solution, Susquehanna keeps 24/7 tabs on its ATM network.
"Wincor Nixdorf's state-of-the-art hardware, software and service solutions provide Susquehanna with a strong, ongoing ROI, in addition to a solid foundation for future upgrades," said Julia Waugh. "Wincor Nixdorf is pleased to be Susquehanna's total banking solutions provider. Susquehanna is setting the standard for financial institutions of its size."
Through the deal, Wincor provides first- and second-line maintenance services, manages monthly operating-system updates and monitors Susquehanna's ATM software, too.
With Wincor's eServices Platform, Susquehanna can customize its own online service performance report via Wincor's iSupport Web-based solution.
"The new hardware, software and services from Wincor Nixdorf have given Susquehanna the opportunity to focus even more on our customers while still being able to reduce costs," said Steven Stoner, vice president and director of systems support and electronic funds transfer services for Susquehanna.
A central benefit for Susquehanna is its new ability to remotely update ATM content through ProView; Wincor also is deploying its ProSales CRM solution across the Susquehanna enterprise.
"It took us about two to two and a half months, but we were able to provide them with a one-to-one CRM self-service channel," Bill Waugh said. "They had many different solutions, so they were in the silo. We brought all of that together for them.
