Another retail innovation adventure in the mid to late 90s was again during my Debenhams tenure. “We need a Wedding List service; John Lewis has got one” was pretty much the spec for this retail project.
I was by now acting as budget holder, PM, BA and Solution Designer combined, but this time had the benefit of a programmer working alongside me. So, a team of 2.
We set to work. The instruction from the IT Director at the time was to deploy a standalone solution for each store. This was ok for a trial but didn’t seem to make much sense for a roll out as, as far as I could see, you didn’t just invite friends who lived locally to your wedding. So, we ignored this instruction and set off to build a full client server, over WAN, architecture.
We were given a trial retail store, Belfast (very convenient) and set off to make friends with the store team. A special Wedding Gift team was put together, and an area of the store allocated, before long we were helping the team to serve customers and altering the application as we went.
“Self-service kiosks, that would be a good idea in retail”
To allow guests to view a list and print off a copy we sourced kiosk casings and hardware, we debated an ABC or QWERTY keyboard layout and I persuaded the store security team to train one of the CCTV cameras on our fledgling kiosk. This meant that we could see how the public interacted with the solution and make adjustments accordingly. A great success and something we deployed to all stores, a bank of 6 in the Oxford Street flagship retail store being a sight to behold.
“Could the bride and groom use some sort of handheld scanner to create their own list?”
We sourced handheld barcode scanners, worked out a way to pre-load them with valid barcode prefixes (no in store wi-fi back then) and paid a specialist supplier a whole £5k to build us a simple scanning solution. Another great success and something we again deployed to all stores.
Then, we were set a target for success of managing 50 weddings over a 6-month trial period. When, after 3 months, we were already at the 500 mark the question came, “can you roll it out immediately?” The usual expectation management ensued. This was a prototype and would require just a little work before we deployed it to 90 stores around the country! Still, this was all part of the fun.
Ultimately, we delivered a PC VB client solution using ODBC to an AS/400 sitting in our Taunton Computing Centre, not sure it had been done before and certainly not that often, but it worked well. I remember the look on the face of one of Senior IT Team (have a little faith Colin Smith) on the morning of go-live; “It’s working ?!” We later deployed a back of house AS/400 solution for customers to access lists in stores that had not been given the full Wedding Gift treatment. Another great job, thanks to Paul Maxwell and his team.
As a hands-on business IT team we delivered training to the stores, got involved in process design, even attended gift wrapping tuition and generally acted as part of the commercial business function. We worked together in a flexible and collaborative way, give or take one or two memorable disagreements, and got the job done. We evolved the solution as we saw ‘the art of the possible’ and how our consumers were prepared to interact. We acknowledged that we couldn’t possibly design the functionality end to end at the start of the project, this was going to be a voyage of discovery, and that was just fine. Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you see what you can have.
As I left Debenhams at the end of 1998, the Wedding Gift Service accounted for circ £20m in sales. Not bad if I say so myself. Thanks to the PC development team of one, Robin Hodkinson. A good job well done.
Retail247
It was whilst working for retailers, designing, developing, and implementing solutions and services, that I first had the idea for Retail247. In the 1990’s retailers first started to appreciate how technology could be used not just to optimise operational performance but also to drive business growth, and I realised that if these ambitions were to come into fruition, solution providers would have a bigger part to play. I have long held the belief that solution providers must understand retail if they are to be effective.
By this I don’t just mean that they should know how to respond to a set of requirements, but that they should understand why there is a need in the first place. It is also important that providers are aligned to how retailers work; requirements can sometimes be iterative as opposed to explicit and this requires flexible working structures, with the ability to course adjust projects should the need arise.
In addition, solution providers must appreciate what the cost benefit case is that was used to justify the expenditure, and they must ensure that the benefits proffered during the sales process are delivered. I have built Retail247 around these points, and I like to think that embedding them in everything we do, and how we operate, sets us aside from the competition.