Who Retail247 Are
At Retail247 I like to believe we pride ourselves on being Retail and IT specialists, with everyone in our team having either a retail background, coming from IT or both! Having spent 10 years working on the shop floor at Jaeger, and 5 years as an IT Business Analyst, I firmly sit in the ‘both’ category and this often gives me a unique perspective in the world of retail IT.
The Problem
With many retailers now facing the problem of having to drag their (often disjointed) legacy systems into the 21st century and the new world of omnichannel, there can be a plethora of new projects all struggling to gain business priority and acquire resource. With the added pressure of 2020, many companies will be facing the issue of having to implement dramatic changes which are reactive to the new retail landscape. Businesses face the need to do this quickly, but with fewer resources or possibly a lower budget than ever before. Therefore, the temptation to throw technology at the situation may become overwhelming. Technology for the sake of technology isn’t useful; it needs to be there to enable and empower the users to deliver a business benefit.
The Solution
Along with our Product Information Management (PIM) platform, Origin, Retail247 also have an extended network of Retail IT consultants ready to assist and improve any problem area from process documentation AS-IS through to TO-BE, testing and training, requirements gathering and analysis, project management and cutover planning, and so many more. The list is endless.
Our aim whenever working with a client is to integrate seamlessly into the team. Often, we do this so well that the rest of the business has no idea we are consultants, assuming we are permanent members of staff (which has given me sneaky access to some lovely fruit baskets, office advent calendars and runner up prizes in the office quiz)! Not only do we get to know the people we are working with, but we also delve into the project area in detail, producing AS-IS documentation to provide a clear picture of the processes currently in place. This always involves finding out the precise number of Excel Spreadsheets in use (always to the surprise of the client) in order to utilise archaic systems that just aren’t up to scratch anymore.
We then either build our own full project team or provide additional resource to an existing team, bringing with us our years of retail and IT experience either way. The project could be anything from a POS rollout, full ERP implantation, Omnichannel, Dropship model, Warehouse Management Systems or back to the basics process improvement.
From my point of view as a Business Analyst, the end user is always key. Having spent many hours managing a shop floor with limited (and let’s be honest and say it, sometimes fairly unmotivated) staff I always ask the question, ‘Does this make life easier for the end user?’ If the answer is no, then they simply won’t use it, regardless of who that end user may be. Even if the answer is yes, I’m not satisfied there. Is the new process or system easy to use and manage? How long does the process take? How many steps are there? Who monitors compliance and who is accountable? What happens if there is a problem, will there be support when the user needs it?
These questions and many, many more allow us to challenge requirements that may ‘technically’ make sense but will fail in the real world as no one has yet put themselves in the shoes of the end user. For example, my first question after having a demo of a ‘magic’ RFID mirror was simply, how do you clean it? If it was too hard to keep clean after use, store staff would need to allocate their time to the more important task of selling.
Summary
Coming at a project from this point of view certainly helps me when gathering suitable requirements, testing, training and then through to implementation and roll out. Having been on the ‘front line’ of retail I can easily put myself in the users’ shoes (there is nothing quite as stressful as a process or a system failing to work with a customer standing in front of you!) and this approach is suitable across all departments. Keeping these questions and attitudes in mind at all times, myself and the rest of the Retail247 team are able to deliver successful projects along with effective business change and a high level of end user adoption, which is the key result in what is a challenging time for retail.