As I continue to explore a new career with Retail247 I find myself contemplating the sort of ‘self-help’ which can leave you feeling enthused or downright inadequate. It avers that the “only thing stopping you is you!”, “follow your dreams!” and “Anything is possible if you want it badly enough”. You may also hear the[…]
There are many factors that engender customer loyalty, product quality, location, availability etc. – but I wanted to relate one recent story that I thought relevant. My parents at 90 & 87 are still mobile and take themselves off on a daily basis to a variety of coffee shops and cafes. These establishments come in[…]
As I diligently laboured over a relatively complex ( for me, though I did write a macro ) spreadsheet over the last couple of days I have been reminded how many times during my career I have sat through detailed and comprehensive solution demonstrations only to hear the inevitable “but can I use Excel?” question.[…]
My thoughts this week have drifted towards IT Leadership and the current trend of referring to Bimodal IT (maybe I should get a hobby). I have always believed that IT serves two distinct purposes. ‘Keep the lights on’ provision of a guaranteed service and innovation to yield competitive advantage. I used to call it Business[…]
A quote that caught my eye recently was “Shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist”. Apart from the obvious response that “it depends where you shop”, I started to think about why is shopping so often seen as a therapeutic exercise. And when does shopping become a chore? What are the factors that determine whether it[…]
A friend of Retail247, we’ll call him Jim, recently told me the story of how, returning from the US, he was fortunate to be upgraded to First Class. Being his first time (no, it wasn’t Virgin Airlines) the flight attendant was particularly helpful and welcoming. Early on she ascertained that our friend did not wish to[…]
Continuing with the theme of applying Real World Thinking examples to the world of technology – it’s time to look at traffic queue theory – or at least a very simple version thereof. Random motorway queues at busy times are often formed by a single vehicle slowing down. Vehicles then arrive at the back of[…]
Historically, shopping can loosely be described as impulsive. Decide you want something, go out and buy it, immediate gratification. In the dark days before on-line shopping, we were used to getting things the same day and at our convenience. Today, consumer expectation has taken a subtle shift. Although purchasing fundamentally remains a mix of the considered[…]
I was impressed by the launch of the Apple watch recently. Of course they have done it with all the style and panache we have come to expect from their excellent brand and you can hardly fail to notice the high fashion influence of ex Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts. With Siri an integral part of the[…]
Short and sweet this week. I always worked on the assumption that any project would have an additional life cycle phase after, during or occasionally before, go-live. After Dev, Test, Imp etc comes, in my opinion, the most important phase of any project methodology, the phase whose length dictates whether a project is ultimately a[…]
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