medications possible. John Janning invented the thermal printing wafer, kicking off the process that led to digital fax technology. Janning also

perfected liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in 1968, which helped give birth to calcula-tors, digital watches, and hand-held video games. Today the company’s main

products include point-of-sale termi-nals, automated teller machines, and scanners. NCR is also active in finan-cial services, retail, hospitality, travel, telecom, small businesses, and the public sector. In fact, NCR is the world leader in consumer transac-tion technologies.

Incorporated in 1900, NCR was acquired by AT&T in 1991, but the

company was reestablished on January 1, 1997, as a separate entity. NCR is the only AT&T spinoff

that has retained its original name; all the others have either been pur-chased or renamed following subse-quent mergers. The company has also retained its iconic logo, developed in 1996 by renowned graphic designer Saul Bass.

The company’s headquarters are in metropolitan Atlanta, having moved from its historical home in Dayton, Ohio. Serving as NCR’s CEO since 2005, Bill Nuti states, “We are running commerce around the

globe in a way that no other com-pany frankly can proclaim.”

ACHIEVEMENTSNCR’s position as a technology leader is

unquestioned. The company holds 2,600 patents (1,400 in the United States) and

has more than 1,700 pending patent appli-cations. Among the company’s accomplish-

ments are as follows:NCR was the first company to market a

product to prevent fraud. The cash register, or “incorruptible cashier,” helped retailers keep a record of incoming cash — and prevented employees from pocketing it.

Three days after John H. Patterson purchased the virtually bankrupt National Manufacturing Company, he began to contact sales agents around the country because he had no money for salaries. Agents didn’t want to sell on a

full-time basis until he gave each of them an exclusive territory — at the time an unknown approach to marketing.

Patterson also made NCR the original home of direct marketing. He believed that “sales make news. And news of sales makes more sales.” To develop a direct mailing list, Patterson asked NCR agents to collect business cards from their prospects. A typist pool addressed labels for direct mail advertising.

NCR’s first significant diversification effort began in the 1920s with the Class 2000 account-ing machine, a sophisticated cash register that printed data on inserted forms and provided 30 totals. Product evolution moved toward more complex transaction processing for users in retail, hotels, railroads, banking, and other industries — a partial forecast of where the company would be a century later.

Each year, businesses and consumers recog-nize NCR for excellence. Some examples are as follows:

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HISTORY Plenty of great ideas have come out of bars. Though when saloon-keeper James Ritty invented the world’s first cash register, he probably had no idea where his idea would lead. From a device for automatically recording sales to technological achievements that smooth the move-ments of worldwide commerce, NCR’s story of growth, achievement, and influ-ence has few parallels.

Enamored with Ritty’s invention, John H. Patterson bought two cash registers for his miners’ supply store. In six months, the reg-isters helped reduce his debt and generate a profit. Further convinced of the machine’s potential, Patterson bought the National Manufacturing Company, producer of the cash registers, in 1884 and renamed it the National Cash Register Company. Today that company is the NCR Corporation.

NCR almost has too many firsts to mention — many of them far afield from the humble begin-nings of a cash register. Pioneering modern salesmanship and direct market-ing, producing the world’s first sales manual and the first newspaper for employees, promoting women in man-agement, implementing the world’s first employee sugges-tion system, and taking bold and novel steps to improve workers’ conditions . . . credit them all to NCR.

Technologically, it’s diffi-cult to overestimate NCR’s influence on daily life. In 1954 NCR scientist Barrett Green invented the micro-encapsulation process, making time-release

prestige and profit, Patterson acted typically for him, moving his desk into the factory to discover what was wrong. He found more than he expected, and the results were likely more long-lasting than intended.

When he first acquired NCR, Patterson found that the factory conditions needed to be drastically improved. The factory was cleaned. Each worker had his individual locker. The men were satisfied. No more defective cash registers came back.

Patterson learned then that close contact with his factory force was the basis of real indus-trial relations. That first dingy workroom led Patterson to introduce the first American day-light factory, with 80 percent of the walls con-sisting of glass windows. His formula for working conditions and labor relations henceforth embodied the three elements of head, hand, and heart. They were the expression of practical altruism and spelled business success.

Back in the 19th century, few business leaders gave much thought to improving employees’ lives. But one day, not long after the episode with the returned cash registers, Patterson saw a woman factory worker warming a pot of

coffee on a radiator. It gave him the inspiration to provide hot meals for employees.

Thus began the era of employee benefits in American industry. The hot meals were followed by rest periods, din-ing rooms, medical service with a dental clinic, visiting nurses, health education, rec-reational grounds, motion pic-tures during lunch, clubs for

employees, night classes, vacations, and educa-tional trips.

Well-educated working women could also expect to advance quickly to supervisory roles within NCR. Amy Acton, who became NCR’s counselor-at-law in 1890, is believed to be the first woman lawyer hired by a corporation — at a time long before women in the United States were even allowed to vote.

Reputation Institute named NCR among America’s most reputable companies in the technology industry in July 2015. NCR ranked number 7 overall on the 2015 list of America’s top 25 most reputable technology companies, ahead of some of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Forbes magazine named NCR as one of America’s best employers for 2015 in the maga-zine’s first-ever Top Employer list.

NCR and First National Bank won the award for “Best ATM and Kiosk Project in Africa” at the Asian Banker’s Middle East and Africa Country 2014 Award ceremony.

NCR is the world leader in self-checkout (SCO) technology, according to strategic research and consulting firm RBR. NCR was the 2013 leader in SCO shipments with a 71 percent share, more than double the number of SCO shipments for all other competitors combined.

NCR announced a formal partnership with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in 2013, providing POS soft-ware for Falcons’ merchandise, including mobile point of sale to the Falcons and creating innova-tive experiences such as in-suite ordering and postgame merchandise pickup. Wayfinding touchscreen technology from NCR also helps fans navigate Falcons’ game days. The two organizations partnered on a variety of community initia-tives, including an internship program. NCR announced in October 2015 that it would also be one of the 14 founding partners of Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

LEGACYNCR’s effect on global business is obvious in a numerical sense, but American workers can trace many improvements in working conditions back to John Patterson.

Early in Patterson’s industrial career a ship-ment of cash registers was returned to the factory from England because of defective workmanship. With such a blow to the company’s

NCR employees give back as well. To celebrate the 130th anniversary of NCR’s founding, NCR Ambassadors, a group of 300 employees in nearly 100 locations who share a passion for NCR and making a difference in their communities, encour-aged NCR employees to complete volunteer ser-vice during a 130-hour period starting on Monday, November 3, 2014, and ending on Saturday, November 8. The Ambassadors orga-nized the “Big Give” in 2013, in which NCR employees donated nearly 20,000 hours of their time to worthy causes.

LOOKING AHEADNCR has always been ahead of its time, and changes come so fast these days that only the hardiest of companies can remain on the neces-sary cutting edge. NCR is moving its business from hardware-driven solutions to cloud-mobile, software-based solutions — still backed by the best available hardware.

Such repositioning also means a greatly expanded available market opportunity for NCR,

to an estimated $87 billion (as of 2015). As the global leader in consumer transaction technolo-gies, NCR turns everyday interactions with busi-nesses into exceptional experiences, making life easier along the way.

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• Starting in 1887, NCR sales agents were required to memorize a 450-word primer based on the successful sales presentation of Joseph H. Crane, John H. Patterson’s brother-in-law, whose sales record consistently topped the other agents.

• NCR engineers invented scratch-and-sniff technology.

• NCR is the only company that sells its own receipt rolls to go with point-of-service and automated teller machines.

• Charles F. Kettering, an NCR employee, devel-oped the first electric cash register. Kettering later worked for General Motors and invented the electric car starter.

• In 1974 NCR commercialized bar code scan-ners. For the world’s first Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner, installed at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, the first scanned item was a package of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

• NCR helps over 550 million transactions take place every day.

Classic Facts and Anecdotes

NCR is committed to conducting all aspects of business in an environmentally sound manner worldwide, striving to minimize the environmental footprint of its operations and products, while delivering innovative technologies and solutions designed to help businesses and consum-ers reduce their own environmental footprint.• NCR’s two-sided thermal receipt printing technology (2ST) allows simultaneous printing on

both sides of a thermal paper receipt or document, to reduce paper usage by almost half.• The European Union Directive on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances

(RoHS) limits the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in electrical and electronic equipment placed on the European Community market. NCR is fully compliant with the EU RoHS Directive and similar legislation in other regions, such as China and the state of California.

• NCR’s end-of-life hardware management services ensure secure and environmentally respon-sible product decommissioning, recycling, treatment, and compliant disposal. The company’s decommissioning and recycling programs are compliant with international recycling legislation.

• NCR’s Columbus, Georgia, facility was one of the very first LEED-certified retrofitted manu-facturing plants in the United States.

G R E E N F O C U S