Case study: Vista Retail Support Ltd.

Coalfire validates the P2PE services of the largest independent retail support service provider in the UK

Founded in 1995, Vista Retail Support Ltd. provides nationwide I.T. maintenance and support services to the retail, hospitality and leisure industries and is recognised as the largest independent provider of specialist retail support services in the UK.

Vista offers a range of technology support services including hardware procurement, maintenance, cabling and installation and contact centre management to brands such as Monsoon, Superdrug, Dunelm, Costa Coffee and Odeon Cinemas helping them to remain innovative and competitive.

In order to continue strengthening its presence in Europe and America, it is imperative that Vista can support its customers in real-time, 365 days a year, with innovative retail technology and a seamless experience. Delivered through its partner network, Vista looked to become the first in-store hardware support provider to achieve an accredited entity status for the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) and selected Coalfire to provide its quality service assessment.

The Need for P2PE accreditation

There are many solution providers on the market with ‘end-to-end’ encryption solutions to protect cardholder data, but few offer their customers the added scope reduction benefits of a PCI-listed P2PE solution. By taking the step to receive P2PE accreditation, Vista can give their customers peace of mind that any security measures made within its solution has been validated as secure by the PCI Council.  This is why Vista moved to become a P2PE entity in its own right.

“We knew how important getting P2PE is for our business and our customer’s businesses. Working with Coalfire for our accreditation has been a very straight forward process,” said Richard Cottrell, managing director for Vista. “Having its team on hand to offer advice and guidance through the P2PE process has been great as Coalfire really understood our own business operations and processes which allowed us to ensure we are fully PCI P2PE compliant.”

Achieving accreditation quickly and simply

Coalfire, a trusted advisor in cybersecurity risk management and compliance services, is a leader in payments technology assessment. While many audit-based PCI Quality Security Assessor firms are unfamiliar with the process of PCI P2PE compliance validation, Coalfire has the industry depth and experience to guide organisations through assessment preparations to completion, ensuring an accurate and efficient validation process. In addition, Coalfire’s detailed and accurate assessment methodology can reduce scope of PCI compliance for merchants, providing Vista with a competitive differentiator for its products and solutions.

Coalfire’s international presence reduced redundancies in the compliance process for Visa, allowing their assessment to function more efficiently and quickly, limiting workflow disruption to their ongoing development.

The need for peace of mind

While writing a solution to help ease the burden of their clients’ PCI compliance responsibilities, Vista needed a partner that was equal parts thorough and quick with its work in the compliance trail.

“Being first to market with a service is important”, said Vista managing director Richard Cottrell, “but we needed to ensure that speed didn’t compromise integrity. Coalfire ensured that we kept to our timescales but stayed true to their audit procedures.”

These measures underscore Coalfire’s desire to improve compliance efficiency, helping streamline processes while enhancing visibility into end-to-end controls.

It all helps organizations, like Vista, spend less time on compliance and security assessments and focus more on growing its business.

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