The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Airfield is marked
“I was very interested in Neil Drysdale’s recent article in The Courier about German maps of Scotland which were to be used for invasion and bombing raid purposes,” emails Stuart Nichol. “When I was emptying
my parents’ house after their demise, I came across 29 similar maps, more than half of them for parts of Scotland, all at scale 1:50,000.
“One of them is the same as illustrated in Neil’s article – Dundee and St Andrews, with Leuchars airfield marked! They all appear to be ordinance survey maps, but with nomenclature all translated into German.
“The story goes that after his spell as a radio operator patrolling the Gold Coast of Africa in flying Sunderland aircraft, my father was posted to Berlin for the victory parade.
“While there, he and his comrades ‘acquired’ souvenirs from buildings in Berlin. The maps formed part of the haul along with many German medals, and other assorted items.
“I must offer the maps to a museum since they are of little use but of significant interest to the period.”
NCR plans to increase its workforce in Dundee this year with extensive graduate and intern recruitment.
Despite the pandemic causing business disruption and the majority of staff working from home, NCR Dundee continued with its planned graduate and intern schemes last year.
This year the firm is planning to give opportunities to 30 graduates and 12 interns.
Carol Hamilton, NCR’S programme management director, said the company had an ethos of cultivating young talent to help bring new ideas and keep innovating.
She said: “We see graduates and interns as an investment in our future, the backbone for innovation and how we are going to stay ahead in the market.
“I’ve been amazed with some of the ideas graduates and interns come up with in partnership with our more experienced staff.
“Even though we were in a pandemic, we didn’t want to lose the momentum we’d gained with local universities and decided to press ahead last year.
“We had 14 graduates and 14 interns in 2020 and the programmes were run virtually rather than in person.
“Some of their friends were saying their placements had been deferred or cancelled. We didn’t want to do that.
“We see the real value that they will bring to the business and this year we are continuing our growth trajectory.”
Dundee is where NCR’S first ATM was built more than 40 years ago and it is now a global research and development centre of excellence.
There are more than 500 staff at its site in Fulton Road, covering all of the firm’s corporate functions, with research and development making up the majority of the workforce.
NCR is best known for its ATM technology, but it is also a leading software and services tech provider for banks, restaurants and stores. Its self service machines are found in all the Big Four supermarkets in the UK.
The latest generation of NCR’S interactive teller machine, developed in Dundee, allows bank staff to communicate directly with customers via video, which was of particular benefit during the pandemic due to reduced branch access.
Staffing levels remained flat year-on-year at NCR’S Dundee operation due to the disruption to the marketplace as a result of Covid-19.
All but 70 staff based in Dundee are working from home and there are extensive social distancing and safety measures in place at its HQ in the city.
NCR vice-president Adam Crighton, who heads up the firm’s Dundee site, said: “We have parts of our business where it’s not possible to do working from home – our test and quality assurance lab for example is hands on, all the equipment is in the building.
“With new product introduction, you can do the design virtually, but when you get to the stage of procuring parts and prototypes that’s hands on.
“The natural reaction of many companies was to stop investment in research and development but we wanted to come out of the pandemic in a stronger position.
“We have continued to invest and plan to introduce three products this year that have been developed in Dundee.
“We miss having the staff all together and having that camaraderie. NCR has always felt like family in every sense of the word so it has been tough from that perspective, but employees’ safety and wellbeing have been our priority throughout.”
The company saw its sales and profits fall last year as the pandemic spread throughout the world. Revenue of $6.2 billion in 2020 was down 10% year-on-year.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation fell from $1.06bn in 2019 to $896 million last year.
NCR made progress advancing its goals to increase its software and services revenue. Last year this represented 72% of total revenue, up from 65% in 2019.
Mr Crighton said the company was “cautiously optimistic” about its prospects in 2021.
This is in part due to plans for complimentary acquisitions. These include Terafina to expand NCR’S digital banking business and a definitive agreement to acquire Cardtronics, the world’s largest non-bank ATM operator and service provider.
“We believe we will drive growth again this year,” he said.
“We can’t control the pandemic but we are committed to investing in our growth strategies around software and services. The rollout of the vaccines gives us confidence things are improving around the world.”