NCR has big plans for Radiant Systems, which it announced it was acquiring earlier this month for $1.2 billion.
The two companies had talked for years, but it wasn't until recently that things worked out between the Duluth technology company and the Alpharetta business that offers software, services, and restaurant and retail payment systems.
"I would be very disappointed if we didn't build a $1 billion business together in the years to come," NCR Chairman and CEO Bill Nuti said of the company with $400 million in revenue. "I wouldn't have acquired it if I didn't think we could."
Radiant Systems started in a garage in New York 26 years ago, Chief Operating Officer Andy Heyman said, before moving to Georgia in 1990. It went public in 1997. Heyman, who will run the hospitality and specialty retail business unit when Radiant is absorbed into NCR, said the market that it operates in is very fragmented.
Radiant works with restaurants, convenience stores and sporting venues, among other customers, to offer loyalty systems, e-mail marketing, gift-card processing, scheduling, and theft and cost control programs. One of its fastest-growing offerings is sales as a service solutions, a way for customers to buy its services on a monthly subscription basis.
Heyman said Radiant employs about 500 people in Alpharetta, a third of its workforce. Both Heyman and Nuti said it was too soon to tell how the companies would combine, but Heyman said he is confident that jobs will be added in the coming years.
Being acquired by NCR, Heyman said, gives Radiant the opportunity to expand its visions on a global basis. NCR has a greater percentage of international business than Radiant does.
"It allows us to do the thing we've been trying to do faster, bigger and better," Heyman said. "It allows us to reach our mission ... with lower risk."
Analysts have praised the acquisition, saying the two companies are a perfect match. QuikTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said the company does business with both Radiant and NCR. He said Radiant has a good reputation in the industry.
"They are long-term thinkers," he said. "It's very difficult to do that in an industry where technology changes on a whim."
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