Solna / SE. (coop) All stores of Sweden’s Coop Group across the country have now been reopened, following the IT disruption that affected Co-op’s POS systems in most parts of the country. The IT disruption is part of a larger global cyber attack on the US software company Kaseya. Several other Swedish and international companies have been affected by the same incident.
Intensive work has been going on day and night to resolve the problems and open as many stores as possible as quickly as possible. Hundreds of technicians have been working in shifts to update the POS systems in all the affected stores.
At the same time, Coop has very quickly scaled up and rolled out our own mobile payment solution, Coop Scan + Pay, as a way for customers and members to shop in our stores during this extraordinary situation we found ourselves in. The Scan + Pay solution is now available in more than 300 stores, and the app has topped the charts in the App Store and Google Play Store this week.
«We can say that we have come through this crisis together – employees, customers and members – in accordance with the cooperative model. We have seen heroic efforts across the country that have enabled the opening of our stores at record speed,» says Magnus Johansson, CEO of Coop Sweden.
At the same time as opening up, Coop has been working in many different ways to reduce wastage as a result of stores being forced to stay closed. Stores have, for example, cooperated with other stores in the area, invited customers for coffee and strawberries and delivered food bags to various aid organisations with items that would otherwise have gone to waste. Together, the shops and the shopkeepers’ associations have found creative solutions to minimise waste.
«I would like to thank all the members and customers for their patience and support, and all the suppliers who have got involved. And of course all the heroes in the stores, who together with customers reduced food waste and found creative solutions,» says Magnus Johansson.
The next step for Coop is to continue the work on optimising the cash capacity in the stores, which will be limited in some stores for a while. Some payment options such as Shop-Express and Quick Checkout will not be possible in some stores for a limited period. These are also being updated at a rapid pace and the possibility to use Scan + Pay is therefore already available in many stores around the country.
Magnus Johansson: «Coop has made major IT and security investments in recent years, but we can see that we need to do more. This is an attack on society as a whole, not just Swedish society, and it is rare in its scale. There are probably many companies and authorities that have learned a lot from this incident going forward. We will analyse in the future what further efforts need to be made and how this has affected us both financially and in other ways, but for now we are happy that we are back and that together we have come through a crisis of global proportions.»
