The 10 most recommended retail solution providers 2018

The way of business solutionsThe way of business solutionswww.insightssuccess.comwww.insightssuccess.com
January 2018January 2018
Retail Insights
Customer Experience through
an Agile Retail Technology Platform
Customer Experience through
an Agile Retail Technology Platform
Retail Insights
Industry Trends
Key POS Trends Reshaping
the Retail Sector
the Retail Sector
Industry Trends
DigiPerspective
Retail in the Digital Age:
Focusing on
the Three Things
Focusing on
the Three Things
DigiPerspective
Trade Link Retail Systems:
A Renowned Partner for Retail Solutions
10Most
Recommended
Solution Providers 2018
The
Ashley La mer
Founder & Chairman
Chas Wurster
Chief Technology Ofcer
Company of the Month

The Changing Phase
of the Retail Industry
n 2018, the act of buying commodities (i.e. buying things because we HAVE to) will become less of a
Ichore. Players like Amazon and subscription businesses will make this part of retail easier through
offerings like auto-renewals, one-tap purchases, and same-day delivery. In other words, the “chore” or
routine component of shopping will become more streamlined.
Meanwhile, the experiential side of retail — the part that involves discovering great products and
socializing with others — won’t be going away. People will still make their way to physical stores, not
because they want to “buy stuff,” but because they want to get experiences that they won’t find anywhere
else. Personalization will still be a key retail trend in 2018 and beyond. We’re not just talking about putting
someone’s name in an email subject line or letting customers put their initials on products. We’re referring
to personalization that enables shoppers to build products and customize them to the very last detail.
The big trend I see is that retailers are finally realizing that they must change. For many years, leaders of
the retail industry were averse to change – they wanted everything to be smooth and as long as they beat
“last year,” they were happy.
This is no longer possible.
In the past, it was the retailer who determined what a customer should want to buy and how they should
shop. Today, it’s the customer who are defining the shopping experience. And a retailer is missing
opportunities for sales when it operates in the traditional silos that kept merchandise categories and selling
channels separate rather than coordinated.
The acceptance of omni-channel trade and digital savvy merchandising is important. Today it is a
requirement for success. However, it is not only acceptance of new ideas, but I also see the need to review
old systems and procedures. Store operations and mindsets must change.
Editor’s Note

Some have assumed that Amazon is going to kill the industry that everything will be bought online.
Well, as we have recently seen, it’s not that simple. On one side, we see stores like Walmart waking
up and moving aggressively into the same online arena. And, Amazon is redefining itself as well. I
am not surprised that Amazon is opening some stores and buying companies like Whole Foods to
gain dominance. I do believe that they will be a strong player but will not eliminate good
competition.
2017 was the year of digital discovery. 2018 will be the year of technology and more integration of it
into mainstream retail. It will be the year where we see retailers create new operating models that are
less focused on their store vs. the web and more focused on creating experiences that gives customers
more control and convenient ways to shop. I think it will be an exciting year where customers will
find newness and creativity.
I predict that most well-funded retailers and department stores will adjust and survive. They will slim
down further and concentrate on destination mega-malls. They will attract customers because they
know fashion, have the brands that appeal, learn to have quicker turnover of their assortment and add
innovations that take hold.
So, with great enthusiasm Insights Success has selected some of the most prominent organizations
around the globe in the issue of “The 10 Most Recommended Retail Solution Providers 2018.”
These organizations are transforming the retail industry with their revolutionary innovations and
foremost initiatives that mainly focus on the product acceleration and customer satisfaction.
The journey starts with the Cover Story Trade Link Retail Systems(Pty) Ltd., a leading South
African Retail IT Solutions group, focusing primarily on the retail Fast Moving Consumer Goods
(FMCG) markets in RSA and Africa, as well as specialized retailing markets.
Then we have our Company of the Month, PAR Technology Corporation, which is an industry
leader in systems and service solutions for the hospitality industry.
We also have Antivia, an international software company who is also the creator of DecisionPoint™,
fast, modern business intelligence (BI) platform that enables non-programmers to create stunning
dashboard applications and interactive dashboards for mobile devices and the desktop; Celerant
Technology Corp, who develops innovative retail and E-Commerce software with a mission to help
retailers grow their business and manage every aspect of their operations with a single integrated
platform; Interactive Edge LLC, an organization which helps in combining a commanding data
analysis engine with flexible, easy-to-use front end tools; moreover, their BI platform helps in
improving the quality and improvement in speed of data vigorous PowerPoint Presentations and
Excel Reports; Shamrock Consulting Group, whose core consulting focus is telecom, data center,
cloud and fiber-related. Shamrock does everything from writing and running complex RFP’s for
larger opportunities, to simple shopping for smaller clients; KPS AG, which is a transformation and
management firm in Europe, that provides solutions in IT management services.
Also, while flipping the pages of the magazine don’t forget to go through Retail Insights- Customer
Experience through an Agile Retail Technology Platform; DigiPerspective- Retail in the Digital
Age: Focusing on the Three Things.
We have also incorporated, Industry Trends- Key POS Trends Reshaping the Retail Sector;
Actionable- Retail Industry: Trends, Insights, and Best Practices.
Piyush Rishi

CONTENTS
Trade Link
Retail Systems:
08
Actionable
Retail Industry:
Trends, Insights, and Best
Practices
22 Industry Trends
the Retail Sector
30
Articles
CXO
Retail Insights
Customer Experience
through an Agile
Retail Technology Platform
Focusing on the
Three Things
34 4024
Expert’s Viewpoint
Legal Practices
Providing Real Value to
the Clients
Cover Story
DigiPerspective
A Renowned Partner for
Retail Solutions

Antivia:
Enabling Non-Programmers to Create Stunning
Dashboard Applications
Celerant Technology Corp:
Developing Retail and E-Commerce
Software in the Retail World
Interactive Edge:
Transforming Technology for Faster
and Deeper Insights
Shamrock Consulting Group:
Offering Reliable Solutions for
Telecom, Data Center, Cloud and Fiber
Verticals at the Guaranteed Best Price
20
28
36
42
PAR Technology:
Software Solutions for the
Food Retailers
16
KPS AG:
Enriching Business Operations with Priceless
Experience and Insights
32

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Corporate Ofces:
January, 2018
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Technology Consultant David Stokes
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Steve, Joe, Rick, Vishal
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Anish MillerSenior Editor
Executive Editors
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Sales Executives
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Online Marketing Strategist
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Jenny Fernandes
Sourav Mukherjee

Ashley La mer
Founder & Chairman

Cover Story
Trade Link
Retail Systems:
A Renowned Partner for Retail Solutions
Solution Providers 2018

Trade Link Retail Systems
(Pty) Ltd (Trade Link) has
been at the forefront of
supplying the Fast-Moving Consumer
Goods (FMCG) industry in Southern
Africa with tailored Point-of-Sale
(POS) solutions for the last 25 years,
their experience has allowed them to
grow with their clients and provide
valuable services, from POS hardware
and software systems and support,
integrating into the retailer back office
and head office functions. Driven by
technology, the Trade Link is able to
provide a full-service solution for retail
needs, driving customer sales with
integrated banking and e-commerce,
loyalty and reward systems and a
seamless management tool to cover the
full business cycle. Trade Link is able
to offer software development and
project management expertise allowing
their customers to remain at the
forefront of their markets through
service excellence.
Due to a South African recessionary
climate, retailers are experiencing a
real slowdown (growth) in traditional
consumer spending patterns and are
looking for more return on a declining
market from their IT partners. Trade
Link is not only aware of this statistic
but ensuring that the retailer client is
receiving more “bang for buck”
through innovative and cost-efficient
systems, relative to customer spend.
Simply put, Trade Link seeks to stretch
the consumer value add and experience
whilst not adding to the bottom line
cost for the retailer using innovative
data and systems analytics, new age
loyalty and rewards systems.
Fascinating Journey of Trade Link
The start was in mid-1994 from an
existing business; Positron which was
a cash-register based company, based
in Durban, Kwazulu Natal and
addressing the general Retail market
for cash register products, solutions
and services. They were offered POS
software to take Trade Link into the
POS PC-based market, out of the old
Cash Register domain, including the
ability for stores to scan items at their
checkouts.
The POS software, POSition, from
Nixdorf had been developed by an
Israel Software company, Retalix, and
was already well established around
the world. They were awarded a pilot
installation by The SPAR Group, using
Nixdorf Hardware, enabling the store
to go the Scanning route for pricing (as
opposed to price marking each item in
the store) and this pilot store was
successfully installed in May 1995.
Trade Link grew from that small
beginning to eventually cover the
entire SPAR group of stores in
Southern Africa, through successive
versions of the original Retalix POS
software with open POS hardware (any
qualified and approved hardware) to
today, with over 1 500 SPAR Member
stores using 13,000 POS software
licences and a now different software
product called “dStore” developed in
Austria and owned by Oracle US.
In 2000 Shoprite Checkers came on
board, using Trade Link to install and
support the same original POS
software till today, with 25 000 POS
software licences installed in South
Africa and many other African
countries. Other similar POS solutions
have been installed by Trade Link in
SA (Clicks) and in Zimbabwe (OK
Zimbabwe, TM Supermarkets, and
Meikles) and in Kenya (Uchumi) and
Mozambique. Food Lovers Market
have been brought into the fold.
By branching out into software
Development (maintaining the original
software source code for the
developers) as well as offering POS
Hardware Maintenance services and
many other complementary products
and services surrounding the key store
checkout POS point, they are exporting
their solution beyond Africa and into
the Europe market and even to the
Middle East, having translated the
same POS software to offer an Arabic
language version.
Trade Link is supporting some 3000
stores, using around 40 000 POS
software licences all installed and
supported by them. Trade Link has
formed separate service companies to
Cover Story

be able to focus on each of their specific clients’ needs and
provide them specialized and tailored service solutions,
including companies in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and
Zimbabwe. They are now branching into Sri Lanka with the
SPAR group, as they open their first stores there.
Enthralling Personality Leading the Retail System
Market
Ashley Lattimer, Founder and Chairman started it all in
1994, with a small dedicated group of staff, some still with
us even today. From that small beginning of around 6
people they employ some 250 staff today and work closely
with many Strategic Partners employing 100’s more related
local staff on the many and varied POS-services required to
service a modern high-tech POS Checkout point in
sophisticated urban environments and also spread out into
the rural and far-flung places in Africa where their solution
is ticking away daily, 24/7 over these past 23 years.
Ashley came out of a life-long IT background mainly spent
at IBM SA and in Europe and mainly in the Services
business – away from the pure hardware side which used to
be the strongpoint of IBM. Having grown up in “Solutions
and Services” this remains our lifeblood still today, offering
POS Solutions and Services of Customer choice and on any
compatible Hardware platforms.

From a largely family-owned business Ashley is now in the
process of handing over within a succession plan to a new
Executive team: Ahmed Laher, their Group CEO and his
team will steer the company into the future with new energy
and ideas, while keeping their core commitment to
providing the best service and products to their valued
clients.
Key Attributes helping Trade Link overcome challenges
Trade Link is not a “box-seller” – rather a builder of
solutions within their chosen market, which they offer with
full accompanying services, they consider the hardware and
software needs of their clients, their development and retail
cycles, new technologies and ways of doing business and
integrating features which give their customers real
competitive advantage.
Their success in times of challenges can be put down to
offering good value for investment for their clients,
responding timeously to their needs and ensuring their
support for their systems is always available, as down time
in this industry is a killer for both their clients as well as
service providers.
Trade Link runs with a small, flat management structure,
never far from the coal face where the customer operates.
The organization is not office-bound and use modern
technology and operating procedures to ensure they are able
to be support their clients well within their Service Level
Agreements (SLA) levels, for both urban and rural based
stores. They maintain an entrepreneurial approach to all
opportunities and are quick to respond to challenges,
internal and external.
Key Industry scenario point of view
Due to the fast pace of innovation and technology
advancement, Trade Link is always monitoring the retail
industry for new trends and ways to give their customers
competitive advantages. Software development of new
services for their clients (rewards and loyalty systems, data
aggregation and monitoring client preferences through their
shopping habits) is an important feature for maintaining
advantage in the FMCG industry, which they are able to
develop specific solutions tailored for their client needs.
Ensuring a stable platform for their POS systems, and to
maintain the organization’s system to be able to deal with
high-volume traffic at the checkouts is an important and
basic function. They have recently been able to offer full
hardware support on their POS systems, as well as the
integrated banking and back office equipment. This allows
the customer to deal with one supplier for all their front and
back office needs.
Working Environment at Trade Link
They encourage their staff to improve their skills through
constant in-house and external training (including
management training as people get promoted), to provide
channels for dialog on all levels, working on an open-door
style where everyone is heard and has their say.
Their staff are empowered to focus on the job and the
customer services they provide, allowing them a wide area
of latitude when it comes to work times and locations, as lot
of the work is done out of the office. They have developed
applications which improves communications when staff is
on the road, providing tools and information to simplify
their work and daily schedules.
Trade link also believes in transformation in South Africa,
and has a significant Broad Based Black Economic
Empowerment (BBBEE) rating, this approach guides them
in hiring and providing training to the staff, and assisting
their suppliers and entrepreneurs with whom they do
business. They have built up their management and
We concentrate on the full
retail cycle for your business,
providing full stock and sales
management at your
branches, head office and
distribution centers

operational staff with skills and an
outlook for supporting the
communities they live in.
Road Ahead
The Trade Link Group looks forward
to introducing new technologies and
services to our clients (E-commerce,
data aggregation) while also offering
online marketing and applications
with our new acquisition to the
group. We wish to consolidate our
position within the POS market
worldwide, with our strategic
partners and suppliers allowing us to
look further afield to Africa, Europe
and the Middle East with new
customers.
Significant Advice from Trade
Link
Trade Link advice to budding
entrepreneurs includes keeping your
business model simple and focused
on your clients and the industry you
operate in. Use and expand on
modern technology, but don’t lose
your core strengths of looking after
your customers basic needs (a secure
POS environment, and no downtime
in our industry). Research new tools
and choose wisely which you chose
to integrate with your products,
always find the value in what you
have chosen to offer to your clients.
Know your customer (and
understand their client needs), never
forget the basics which allow them
to succeed and be flexible in your
offerings and their requests. Instil
your company work ethic and
culture into all your staff and look
after the people who make us a
success.
We ensure a centralized control
over all your retail operations
Cover Story

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Management BriefCompany Name
Agilence
agilenceinc.com
Russ Hawkins
President & CEO
Agilence is the leader in Cloud-Based Data Analytics for store
operations and loss prevention.
Antivia
antivia.com
Mark Hudson
CEO & Founder
Antivia is an international software company and is the creator
of DecisionPoint™, fast, modern business intelligence (BI)
platform that enables non-programmers to create stunning
dashboard applications and interactive dashboards for mobile
devices and the desktop.
Celerant Technology Corp
celerant.com
Ian Goldman
CEO & President
Interactive Edge LLC
interactiveedge.com
Zel Bianco
Co-founder, President
& CEO
Interactive Edge helps in combining a commanding data
analysis engine with flexible, easy-to-use front end tools;
moreover, their BI platform helps in improving the quality and
improvement in speed of data vigorous PowerPoint
Presentations and Excel Reports.
PAR Technology
Corporation
partech.com
Chas Wurster
Chief Technology
Officer
PAR Technology Corporation is an industry leader in systems
and service solutions for the hospitality industry.
Salesboom.com
salesboom.com
Troy Muise
CEO & Co-founder
Salesboom.com offers a fully integrated Affordable Best in class
Hosted CRM software solution with Outlook, QuickBooks,
Invoicing, Quoting & Project Management.
Shamrock Consulting
Group
shamrockconsulting.com
Paul Cooney
Founder & CEO
Shamrock Consulting Group’s core consulting focus is telecom,
data center, cloud and fiber-related. Shamrock does everything
from writing and running complex RFP’s for larger
opportunities, to simple shopping for smaller clients
Solid Commerce
solidcommerce.com
Erik Simon
VP, Marketing
Trade Link Retail
Systems (Pty) Ltd.
trade-link.co.za
Ashley Lattimer
Founder & Chairman
Trade Link is one of the leading South African Retail IT
Solutions group, focusing primarily on the retail Fast Moving
Consumer Goods (FMCG) markets in RSA and Africa, as well
as specialized retailing markets.
Celerant Technology develops innovative retail and E-
Commerce software with a mission to help retailers grow their
business and manage every aspect of their operations with a
single integrated platform.
Solid Commerce helps its clients to grow their marketplace
sales by providing the most integrated Software as a Service
(SaaS) eCommerce operations platform coupled with
Marketplace Growth Advisors dedicated to your success.
KPS AG
kps.com
Leonardo Musso
CEO
KPS AG is a transformation and management firm in Europe,
which provides solutions in IT management services.

The retail industry is in the middle of a transformative phase with
changing consumer behaviors, a rapidly evolving set of enabling
technologies, and growing complexity. Through all of this, their
customers and partners rely on PAR Technology Corp. to help them to
be successful in this evermore-challenging environment.
PAR Technology is a conscious company with a strong culture
where performance management is a way of life. The people of
PAR are the inspiration for the creation of their shared core values:
People, Authenticity, Awareness, Perseverance, and Dreaming.
These values aid in talent retention and employee engagement
among Millennials, GenX and Baby Boomers. PAR people
believe that they are the servant leaders, and their stakeholder
responsibility ethos is well understood across the company.
The organization is on a journey to transform PAR from a
hardware and service provider, to a software lead solutions
company. Central to this journey are the cloud-based Brink
POS® Software and the SureCheck® Food Safety
Platform. By combining their long-standing quality
hardware product lines, with innovative Cloud and IoT
technologies, PAR is able to rapidly introduce solutions to
the market to support their customers ranging in size from
single locations, to some of the fastest-growing and most
respected restaurant chains and food retailers in the world.
About PAR Technology Corporation
For nearly 40 years, PAR has developed technology
solutions for food-based retail companies such as restaurants,
grocery chains, convenience stores and contract food
providers.
With POS systems in more than 75,000 restaurants and over 110
countries, PAR is redeﬁning the point of sale to bring
technological innovation to all aspects of the business. PAR’s POS
software is complemented by reliable hardware and is backed by
PAR’s international services infrastructure.
In addition to PAR’s hospitality solutions, it is a leading provider of
technical solutions to the government sector. PAR’s Government business
is a wholly owned subsidiary of PAR Technology Corporation and is
comprised of PAR Government Systems Corporation and Rome Research
Corporation. PAR’s Government business delivers innovative information
management solutions through advanced technology and professional services to
Federal, State, and local Government agencies, as well as private industry
customers throughout the world.
Technology:
Software
Solutions
for
PAR
Retailers
Food
| January 2018 |16

PAR Technology Corporation stock is traded on the
New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PAR.
Charles “Chas” Wurster is the Chief Technology
Ofﬁcer (CTO) at PAR
Chas joined PAR in 2017 as Chief Technology Ofﬁcer
and brings to PAR experience and perspective gained
from working as an entrepreneur and at Fortune 500
companies. As CTO, Chas leads the software and
hardware development teams, as well as product
management, across all product lines. Below are
Chas’’ insights on the industry and the exciting things
PAR is working on.
Industry Disruption
On the POS side, payments remain an area of
disruption, both from the point of view of security, as
well as emerging technologies. There is a constant
stream of press around compromised payment systems
that should be concerning to anyone in the space. On
the technology side, PAR sees less than half of the
restaurants with payment entry devices, which enable
not just Apple Pay and Android Pay, but also EMV
chip cards to be processed. The impacts of changing
consumer behavior goes well beyond mobile
payments. They also see disruption from meal kits,
delivery options, kiosks and other self-ordering
solutions. The challenge for the restaurant industry
will be to balance these emerging consumer trends
with the overall goal of producing exceptional food
and delighting the customer.
Another challenge the industry faces is keeping up
with reporting and food safety. There is a continuing
proliferation of pen and paper reports out in the
industry that is ripe for the transition to digital. As old
school pen and paper checklists move to digital, it
introduces the ability to verify that the activity was
performed at the right time and in the right place.
Included in the transition to digital recording are a
number of improvements to temperature monitoring.
PAR’s SureCheck platform offers not just checklists,
but also the ability to take temperature measurements
with their best in class, dedicated and all-in-one
devices. By leveraging Cloud technologies, all the compliance
and food safety data can be sent to the Cloud where it can be
analyzed for trends and leveraged to generate compliance
reports.
Competitors
In general, PAR has two types of competitors – large, mature
companies that are still struggling to get to the Cloud, and
venture backed startups targeted at smaller or single unit
concepts that, while well-funded, do not have a long history of
being able to scale and deliver value over time.
Chas Wurster
Chief Technology Ofcer
| 2018 |January 17

Technology systems, like point of sale and food safety, tend
to have a relatively long expected lifespan compared to the
longevity of typical venture backed offerings. While a
consumer may enjoy trading out their iPad for a new one
every year, it can be incredibly disruptive for a restaurant to
replace infrastructure.
Benefiting Clients
PAR's clients get best in class hardware, combined with
industry leading Cloud systems. This unique combination
allows their clients to get everything they need to run their
business from one trusted partner. PAR also has a robust
ecosystem of partners who provide additional services
through their application programming interfaces (APIs).
With the entire customer’s data is in the Cloud, it is
significantly easier to perform updates, analyze data and
trends, provision users, and add new features.
Strategizing the Success through Risk
There are a number of other competitors in the space.
PAR’s strategy to address competition is to focus on
delivering a quality product at a competitive price point
without any gimmicks or hidden fees. By renewing their
focus on quality, providing their technical staff with a work
environment that fosters innovation, and partnering with
their customers to understand their needs, they believe that
the organization would outperform their competition.
Making the Industry Better
As a proponent of secure Cloud and IoT solutions, PAR is
focused on enabling their customers to do more with the
technology they have, while also creating an environment
that allows new technology to be seamlessly introduced. By
providing real-time access to data across all locations,
trends can be identified instantly and corrective actions can
be taken immediately. They also work with their customers
on risk assessments and make recommendations to improve
the overall security of their payment systems. On the food
safety side, they are literally making the industry safer by
introducing technology to ensure proper refrigeration and
food preparation across a number of verticals, from grocers,
to convenience stores and everything in between.
Looking Ahead
In the next few years, PAR continues its growth in
traditional markets, while introducing some innovative new
products and enhancements. The Brink POS Software and
PAR hardware teams are very excited to be working in
tandem on a refresh of their kitchen operations and kitchen
video systems. As they look to the future, they see more
demand for self-service ordering from mobile, kiosks, voice
recognition and beyond. To facilitate this, and integrations
rd
with 3 party delivery services, PAR is highly focused on
improving developer partnership programs and making
APIs easier to leverage and integrate with. Lastly, PAR is
excited to be working on some payment related offerings
that are expected to be commercialized in early 2018.
People don't buy goods
and service; they buy
relations and stories
‘‘
‘‘
| January 2018 |18

Enabling Non-Programmers to Create
Stunning Dashboard Applications
Retailers operate in a challenging environment. They
face multiple challenges in the form of intense
competition, low profit margins and ever changing
customer preferences. To survive from all these, they need
to make some smart decisions based on up-to-date and
accurate data, rather than just on gut feel.
Antivia is an international software company, and is the
creator of DecisionPoint™, a fast, modern business
intelligence (BI) platform that enables non-programmers to
create stunning dashboard applications and interactive
dashboards for mobile devices and desktop. These
dashboard applications can be shared with frontline
decision makers who can pick them up and use them
without training to answer their daily and one-off questions
- wherever they are located.
Antivia was founded in 2007 in Leeds, UK and since then
their software has helped 100s of organizations around the
world to unlock the value trapped in their business data.
Antivia is part of the insightsoftware.com family; they were
acquired in September 2016.
Promising Services of Antivia
DecisionPoint™ enables retailers to create and share guided
insights with store managers, category managers, supply
chain managers, procurement managers and anyone else
who needs them.
• Create and share retail analytics that match your
business processes
DecisionPoint™ combines information from multiple data
sources to provide the big picture view on inventory levels,
supply chain movements, customer demand, sales, etc.
Choose from over 50 components to visualize the data.
Drag and drop to layout. Calculate key performance
indicators. Add sophisticated filters, drill, custom
workflows, and color-coded alerts. Apply a custom creative
theme that mirrors the brand and helps drive high levels of
adoption.
• Get guided insights into the hands of the people who
need them
Delivering retail analytics through customized dashboard
apps that are tailor-made for people’s roles gives them
the flexibility and autonomy they are looking for. These
apps guide people through the KPIs and metrics that are
most important to their success. With DecisionPoint™, they
can analyze data by drilling through product hierarchies or
filtering to compare individual stores or markets across
selected time periods.
• Share information with more people across your
organization
DecisionPoint™ scales cost-effectively, to deliver fast
response times for large numbers of users from a modest
hardware footprint. In a distributed retail environment, it
lets you share information with everyone who needs it.
Sales assistants in store may want to see how their
department is performing against target on a big wall-
mounted screen.
And, DecisionPoint™ provides complete offline access to
information when they have no network access. It works
across Windows, Android and Apple devices. So, you can
be confident that your people will always have access to the
information which they need.
Backbone of Antivia
Mark Hudson, CEO and Founder has over 20 years’ of
vast experience in the business intelligence world in
operational, leadership and product management roles.
A serial entrepreneur, Mark sold his first venture, Blue Edge
Software, to Business Objects (now owned by SAP) in
2001. He then spent a number of years working for
Business Objects in senior roles within the Product Group
and latterly as Business Development Director and member
of the management team in Australia.
Antivia:
RetailRetail
The 10 Most Recommended
| January 2018 |20

After leaving BusinessObjects, Mark
joined the Executive Team at
Edgewing, a data integration specialist,
as Business Development Director.
After Edgewing was acquired by
Business Objects, Mark left to set up
Antivia.
From his early days as a business
intelligence consultant back in the mid
-1990s, Mark has always believed that
the value of information increases the
greater the number of people who have
access to it. Yet, many people in
organizations still lack access to
timely, relevant information delivered
in a format that works for them.
The majority of BI and analytic
software has been developed to serve
the needs of the data analysts within
organizations. Yet, data analysts only
represent 5-10% of workers who need
access to information. Other people –
including front-line workers like store
managers and category managers in
retail - still don’t have easy access to
the data they need to make smart,
informed decisions and to take the
most appropriate action. Mark
established Antivia to support the
needs of these people who have
historically been underserved by
information.
Challenges Faced by Antivia during
their Business Days
When Antivia started out they focused
on the SAP world, because this is a
market they know well. At the time
they added value to SAP’s dashboard
technology – making dashboard
designers more productive and making
it easier for them to work with
enterprise data sources.
But, SAP Dashboards was based on
Adobe’s Flash technology and as the
market shifted to mobile, Flash very
quickly became yesterday’s
technology. From this point, the
writing was on the wall for SAP
Dashboards. That’s when they took the
decision to become a BI platform in
their own right, developing their own
design tool to create dashboard
applications against their existing
back-end technology.
This allowed them to design a product
from ground up for needs of the mobile
world. And, that is why one of the key
benefits of DecisionPoint™ is in its
offline capability. This is a key
requirement for mobile workers. With
DecisionPoint™, mobile workers can
still interact with their content –
drilling and filtering even when they
are offline. There is no need for them
to second guess the content they will
need before they hit the road.
Future Executions by Antivia
The organization plans to continue to
help retailers create and share analytics
that everyone can understand and act
upon. They pride themselves on being
responsive to their customers’ needs
and this has a big influence on their
product roadmap.
Mark Hudson
CEO & Founder
When you can’t guarantee network connectivity for mobile workers,
allow them to take all the information they need o line with 1-click - giving
them fully interactive access to their information whenever they need it
‘‘‘‘
| 2018 |January 21

When we ponder the traditional shopping
experience, we realize how far we have come in
the customer service with the developments in
the retail industry. These evolutions came into the picture
not only because of the technological advancements, but the
radical changes in our thoughts, behavior, and decision-
making towards shopping also brought them in. Today’s
retail is aimed to serve the consumers in the most
convenient ways. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” neither
retailers like to say this nor customers like to hear this.
Thus, the retail industry embraces advanced technologies
and wows the customers with innovative options, widgets,
and other means. Today’s customers demand that retailers
should be able to immediately fulﬁll as well as predict their
needs. With current trends in the industry, this
transformation is possible.
Trends
When it comes to the shopping trends, Amazon appears as a
game changer. It offers exceptional services to the
customers such as member discounts and same-day
delivery. Its great customer services, competitive pricing,
and reliable user reviews and support are well-known
worldwide. Amazon’s new feature Echo (Alexa) is trending
these days, which makes shopping virtually effortless. Echo
knows the customers’ buying history and preferences based
on which Alexa offers daily promotions and special deals.
Although online shopping is getting popular, brick and
mortar shops still stay relevant. Many shoppers want to try
the products hands-on before they buy. These customers can
be found searching “locations near me” online. Therefore,
brands are expanding their stores to the new locations.
Moreover, Location based targeting is dominating in the
retail. Geo-fencing and Geo-targeting use GPS to send out
push notiﬁcations and messages to those who have the apps
downloaded. For instance, as soon as you arrive in the
parking lot, you get a tailored message from the nearest
store. Geo-fencing is like location-based advertising
irrespective of the customers’ interests, while Geo-targeting
involves different interests and needs to target users.
Trends, Insights, and Best Practices
Retail Industry
Actionable
| January 2018 |22

Virtual shopping is what shoppers are waiting for. The
retailers will cater holograms and virtual reality displays,
enhancing the in-store experience. It would be amazing to
try on an outfit in the virtual environment without changing
clothes. The retailers will provide GPS tracking for
shipping or delivery. Using GPS tracker, customers will get
to know exactly where their product is on the route. The
retailers are encouraging consumers to post reviews for the
products they are purchasing. For a reason, new buyers rely
on the product reviews more and trust in the consumers'
community.
Insights
A report says that almost seven in ten get influenced by
their friends’ social media posts; 83 percent people trust
recommendations from their family and peers. They
discover the products online before going out to the shop.
Therefore, the retailers need to create a seamless chain
between online and on-site shopping. Virtual reality, social
shopping, and other services can help consumers find the
product, access reviews, and locate stores to buy.
Best Practices
The retail sector requires deploying the best practices to
cope with the advancements. These different practices are
applied in different phases- before the sale, during the sale,
and after the sale.
Front door analytics are needed to understand the traffic and
demographics. In this phase, retailers should capture
conversion rates, the frequency of visit, and duration of
visit for every store hourly. The staff selection should be
based on traffic or transactions, and the staff scheduling
should be based on the data from interaction analysis.
Traffic type (first-time visitors or repeat customers) also can
be analyzed before the sale.
The traditional purchase experience was controlled by
retailers’ systems (call forwarding system) during the sale.
But today customers control the purchase experience with
online payments, mobile POS, and mobile payments. The
retailers should give a reason to visit the store that can lead
to customer satisfaction. Also, asking for feedback helps in
building good rapport and gaining insights.
After the sale strategies play the crucial role in building
brands. There are lots of ways available that can be utilized
for customer retention such as social media, CRM system,
and Email marketing. Rather than offering discount
coupons with low conversions and thin margins, retailers
should focus on delivering offers based on customers’
profiles and purchase history. These offers should be
delivered through customers’ preferences (Email, mobile,
etc.), and develop a very personal customer experience.
New formats for the stores are based on Artificial
Intelligence (AI), helping the retail industry to gain more
insights. With video analytics, the retailers can understand
the shopping flow, such as how customers shop and engage
with the products. Customers look for the value and variety
of the products and experience the speed and ease of
checkout at the stores, whether it is online or offline. No
wonder, the retailers who accept more payment methods get
the attention of more customers.
Along with the developments in technology, marketing
processes are getting refined and automated. Marketing
automation has the entire pipeline to convert a visitor into a
customer and consequently to generate more revenue. The
retail industry can use these processes to resolve the
complexities of consumers’ behavior, making it easier to
predict their needs. The focus, which is majorly on
providing sophisticated customer service, should equally be
of customer satisfaction by providing convenience.
| January 2018 | 23

Legal Practices Providing
Real Value to the Clients
Expert’s Viewpoint
| 8 |January 20124

We know how a great client experience feels. A quick
email reply from a business makes us feel like we are
their only customer. The convenience of online check-
in for a flight provides a seamless airport experience. Successful
companies provide a great client experience – Apple, Amazon,
Air New Zealand. You’d be forgiven if law firms don’t make
your list.
In 2017, the average Net Promoter Score for client satisfaction
for law firms was 17%. Lawyers are good at meticulously
drafting legal documents and solving problems for their
clients. We view our ‘product’ as the legal contract or advice.
But the product of any professional service should be the
entire experience of interacting with the service provider.
A law firm that prioritises delivering an exceptional
experience will attract more clients and earn stronger
loyalty. Firms that disregard their clients’ evolving
expectations will be left behind.
The Difference Between Client Service and Client
Experience
We hear people use client service and client experience
interchangeably. But there is an important difference.
When a client calls a law firm, a lawyer may pick up
the phone, warmly greet the client and listen to their
issue. This is client service. But if a lawyer tells the
client they will follow up later, and forgets to call
back for a month, this would sour the client’s overall
experience.
Client service is then about the individual
interactions a client has with your business. Client
experience is the sum of all the client’s touch
points with your business.
What Makes an Exceptional Experience?
We’ve likely encountered law firm marketing
that touts some variation on these common
themes:
• Legal expertise and industry knowledge;
• Practical and commercial solutions; and
• Professional service.
But these traits simply meet the base
expectations that clients have for their
lawyer. An exceptional client experience
should exceed these expectations.
In our short history, focusing on these five
pillars has enabled us to deliver an
excellent client experience.
Jacqueline is the Head of Client
Care at LegalVision, Australia’s
fastest growing tech-driven law
firm. She holds the degree of
graduate lawyer in legal practices
and General Legal Practice
Specialization in Corporate and
Commercial Law from Bond
University.
About Author
| 2018 |January 25

1. Eam dedicated to the Client Experience
In the same way that law firms have teams dedicated to
producing legal work or marketing campaigns, so too do
organisations need a team that has the client experience
front of mind.
The role of the client experience (CX) team is to ensure the
client’s journey with your organisation is as consistent and
frictionless as possible. This requires the Client Experience
Officer (CXO) to identify the barriers that could prevent
lawyers delivering a great experience.
For instance, a lawyer has competing priorities - speaking
with a client about their legal matter, creating and sending
the invoice and completing the legal work. As a result, they
may be slower in responding to a client’s questions, forget
to update a client on next steps or sound rushed on a phone
call.
The CXO, recognising that delays in communication will
impact the client’s experience, can then work across teams
and design solutions to these delays, such as:
• separating service delivery functions;
• training specialist legal project managers to respond to
client enquiries; and
• creating invoice templates to increase efficiency.
2. Personalising Service
Historically, law firms viewed the client’s journey from a
lawyer’s perspective. This included how we spoke with
clients on the phone, drafted correspondence and billed for
legal work. Law firms can better tailor their service offering
by working with clients on their terms. This involves:
• Meeting clients where they are (online and mobile);
• Mirroring the language and tone clients use in verbal and
written communication;
• Listening to their choice of words to gauge their level of
legal and commercial knowledge;
• Offering flexible billing options; and
• Setting out what scope of work is included in the price.
How a lawyer makes a client feel can either overwhelm the
client and deter them from proceeding with the legal
assistance they need, or energise a client about the next
steps in their business’ journey.
3. Ask for - and act on - feedback when it’s provided
Clients can more easily check the reviews of the legal
service your firm provides online – the lawyer’s demeanour,
the usefulness of the advice, the speed of their replies and
the cost. Your legal team and CX team should collect
feedback at all stages of the client’s journey with your firm
using Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, social media
reviews and phone calls for qualitative feedback.
Don’t ignore this feedback. Part of the CX team’s role is to
action feedback from your clients to make your processes
easier, faster and more enjoyable. Sometimes, a client may
leave a negative review online. As a first step, it’s important
to speak with the client to better understand the nature of
their complaint. If the complaint stems from an internal
process or procedure, this may require assessing the
existing framework and making changes within the team.
4. Provide real value for clients
Law firms now too often focus on providing legal services
at a competitive price. But a CXINLAW report found that
60% of clients say the quality of service most informs their
purchase, and 25% say the cheapest price. When choosing a
legal services provider, we know that cost is a factor for
clients. But it's not the determinative factor.
The perception of value and quality is central to client
satisfaction and loyalty. Value is multifaceted and
encompasses technical advice, the ease of the experience,
communication about the process and usefulness of the
advice. For example, a lawyer writes an article explaining
in plain English the function of a shareholders’ agreement
and its terms. The lawyer then shares the article with a
prospective client. This adds value because the client can
read the article, in their own time, and decide whether the
document is most appropriate for their business and
circumstance. This gives the client control over the
decision-making process and demonstrates the lawyer’s
subject-matter expertise.
5. Anticipate the client’s needs
Law firms can now access tools to collect and record
information about their clients’ businesses, industries and
legal enquiries. This information reveals patterns about
what a client likely needs next in their business’ journey.
For instance, a busy client may engage your firm to help
with business structuring. But if you know that other clients
of a similar size and in a similar industry started thinking
about registering a trade mark in eight months, you can
pre-empt a conversation about protecting the business’
intellectual property. This may not be at the front of the
client’s mind, but they'll appreciate you sharing your
experience about similar businesses. You may also just save
them from landing in an uncomfortable trade mark
dispute.
| January 2018 |26

Developing Retail and E-Commerce
Software in the Retail World
For many years, retailers have focused on
personalizing the experience for their shoppers
online by providing seamless checkout processes,
mobile E-Commerce and by tracking their every movement
online. With all this data, there is a growing need to
leverage this data to create smarter experiences and reduce
operating costs. For example, some retailers are using their
data to automate personalized email campaigns and
coupons. One of our clients created a “personalized online
shopping assistant” by using their CRM data to suggest
products based on their brand preferences and past
purchases.
Celerant Technology develops innovative retail and E-
Commerce software with a mission to help retailers grow
their business and manage every aspect of their operations
with a single integrated platform. The company retail
system combines POS, inventory and order management,
warehousing, business intelligence, E-Commerce,
marketplace integrations and integrated marketing
automation. The organization also partner with each of their
clients to ensure their success by providing a seamless
implementation, customizations, training, support and
services such as digital marketing to increase traffic to their
stores and website. With 18 years’ experience, they bring
their expertise, innovation and best practices to the retail
industry, and have been recognized this year as the #1 retail
software on the RIS LeaderBoard.
Innovative Leaders of Celerant Technology
In the 1990s, they began to see a shift from the old style
cash registers to computer-based systems. By the end of the
90s, retailers began demanding more, however, there was a
lack of high-end technology especially for small-to-mid
size retailers. Ian Goldman, CEO/President, along with
his brother, Robert Goldman, CTO, and John Heiser,
CFO, founded Celerant Technology to improve the retail
industry with innovative technology. Their initial goal was
to develop a single, real-time, database system for tier 2 and
3 retailers.
Impressive Services by Celerant Technology
Celerant’s retail software enables omnichannel merchants to
manage and expand their entire business, in-store and
online, within one system in real-time. Celerant goes far
beyond your typical retail software company- designing
custom E-Commerce sites built on a single database with
Celerant’s POS software, providing seamless integrations to
multiple online marketplaces and offering full-service
digital marketing with SEO and email automation,
integrated with CRM and sales data.
Celerant Technology provides retailers with the tools
needed to streamline supply from their vendors. Through
these tools, retailers can browse vendor catalogs, import the
products they want to sell, and automatically reorder
inventory based on min/max levels. With live vendor feeds,
retailers can sell wider product lines on their website
without stocking inventory or fulfilling the orders by
displaying their vendor’s available inventory on their
website. When customers make purchases, the orders are
sent directly to the distributor for fulfillment via drop
shipping.
Through their integrations with 3rd-party marketplaces such
as Amazon, Walmart and eBay – they allow retailers to
easily expand sales via new outlets on the web. Retailers
can easily upload and sell their products directly on 3rd-
party marketplaces, and track those sales - all in a single
place. They can choose to fulfill their own orders or have
the marketplace fulfill the orders.
Celerant provides a fully-integrated email automation
platform, which their clients use to promote their
Celerant Technology Corp:
RetailRetail
| January 2018 |28

businesses. Using in-store and online
CRM/sales data, retailers can automate
and personalize email campaigns based
on their shopper’s buying patterns,
interests and brand preferences.
Personalized email marketing can drive
more traffic to their retail store and
website by delivering up to 6x higher
open rates.
When Risk Becomes the
Opportunity to Prove
As a leader in the retail software
industry, they are continuously
innovating and introducing new
technology to the market. The most
significant challenge they face with
new advancements is slow user
adoption. For example, they were one
of the first to integrate the latest in
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)
with their POS around 10 years ago.
However, the industry, including their
client-base, was not ready to adopt this
technology. With their newest
innovation, an email marketing
platform integrated with clients’ live
sales and CRM data in order to send
the right message at the right time,
while they are seeing a higher
adoption, it has been at a slower pace
than they anticipated.
Future Footsteps of Celerant
Technology
In short, you can expect more and
more innovative features. Retail
platforms are defined by the features
and functions that users require. The
more Celerant is able to offer, the more
efficiently users can operate, enabling
Celerant to make a greater impact on
the retail industry.
In 2018, look for more Stratus Retail
integrations with third-party online
marketplaces, as well as expanded
digital marketing services to help
retailers promote both their in-store
and online sales. Celerant is preparing
to unveil their new dashboard reporting
on the Stratus Retail main menu screen
so that retailers can see, at a glance,
their most important reports and have
more visibility in their top products
and brands. They are enhancing their
repair and rental modules, as well as
buy/trade and consignment. They
continue to partner with new vendors-
distributors and manufacturers-
creating integrations to help their
clients’ better leverage the resources
made available to them, such as
catalog imports and drop shipping.
This year Celerant announced the
release of their new SaaS, Cloud
system- Cumulus Retail- through their
subsidiary, CAM Commerce, for the
tier 3 retailers. In 2018, the company is
looking forward to providing tier 3
retailers with tier 1 technology and 35
years retail experience, all with tier 3
pricing and simplicity.
Ian Goldman
CEO & President
Our in-house team of developers is capable of
customizing the system in order to fit any specific operation
‘‘
‘‘
| 2018 |January 29

Key POS TrendsPOS Trends
Retail SectorRetail Sectorthe
Reshaping
In recent times, the retail industry hasn’t seen a more
exciting invention since the invention of cash register.
With new and innovative technologies helping shape
both online and offline experiences for consumers, the
landscape is continuously changing in a way which was
unimaginable even few years back. The best part is that
there seems to be no end of the innovation, which only
influencing the purchase decision of the consumers.
Nowadays the main focus of retailers is to create a safe,
engaging, and unique shopping experience for its
consumers, it’s very important for the retailers to
understand the importance of Big Data and in-store
analytics and adapting to the cloud. With the retail industry
at the verge of massive transformation, we are listing out
few key trends that everyone needs to know to be
successful in the ecosystem that is transforming quickly.
Multi-system Integration
Multi-system integration with various applications gets the
utmost priority from top retailers. Most of the retailers list
out POS integration with other applications as a key priority
alongside the implementation of dynamic marketing content
through mobile devices. This is mostly due to the retailer’s
interest to store all the customer information and purchase
history in a database, which is completely centralized that
could be easily integrated with multiple applications.
However, in order to do that, a retailer needs to use an ERP
database that can handle all these.
Speed
People always look for quick solutions for everything. A
clock starts ticking the moment a customer enters, no matter
how good the product is, if the process is slow and the
attention to details are missing, then customers will leave
disappointed. As a retailer, one cannot please everyone, but
with a modern and efficient POS, the service can be
improved. A modern POS simplifies the communication
between various departments and can save a lot of time for
both the retailer and the customer respectively.
Managing Stocks
Keeping and managing inventory is a nightmare for most of
the retailers, and it’s quite natural. Managing inventory is a
never-ending task and takes a lot of effort, time, and
manpower. However, it is quite important to manage
inventories when it comes to long-time survival. An
efficient POS system always makes the process of
managing the inventory much easier. The best part of a POS
is, one can monitor the status of stocked items, shipped
products, and new orders anytime. This is a huge time saver
for a cumbersome and a tedious process, and eventually
helps retailers to focus on other important aspects of
running the business.
Customized Experience
With POS systems, retailers just need to provide
personalization that scoops out every shopper. Every
passing year, retailers are adapting to personalized
technology solutions that allow an interactive user
experience. Thanks to the emergence of all new mobile
POS technology, now retailers can offer its customers more
choices to accommodate their shopping habits by letting
them to complete transactions anywhere in the store. Now
with the invention of improved POS marketers and
customer service teams can contact the buyer at each point
of their purchase decision. With so much data retailers and
consumers can have better customer service, quicker
payment processes and access to better offers and real-time
personalization.
Industry Trends
| January 2018 |30

Promotions and Marketing at its Best
Nowadays with the advent of digital technology, marketing
involves maintaining a digital presence as well. A POS can
integrate all the advertised offers with transactions, making
it easier to keep track of all the campaigns. Additionally, it
can integrate with CRM and track customer behavior. When
an offer gets popular among the masses, then the retailer
will see it in his transaction data.
Usage of Big Data analytics
In order to compete with e-commerce, retailers are now
taking the help of Big-Data and in store analytics just to
have a better idea about what’s happening inside the store.
Big-Data analytics helps retailers to track how frequently a
specific item moves from shelf to shopping cart allows
retailers to know the trends that are dominant in the market.
Analytics helps the retail industry in a big way to better
understand consumer purchase pattern and behaviors.
Keeping Track of Employees
To run a business smoothly a retailer, need few people. A
POS system enables to manage them with great accuracy.
With a Point of Sale system in place, employees can sign on
or off easily and the system will automatically log their
work hours and break hours.
Security
Above all, a POS system offers great security protections
that help keeping customer data safe. Retail stores and
businesses are always prime targets for Cyber Criminals,
and a data breach is not good for a business. So, by using
standard encryption and firewall, businesses can be secured
from cyber-attacks and customers can swipe their cards
with a peace of mind.
So, here we have listed out few of the POS trends that will
shape the future of the retail industry. As we look ahead,
these trends will be on focus for both retailers and
customers. The main advantage of an advanced POS system
is greater efficiency and optimization, it links all the
departments together which eventually allows to have better
control over the inventory, better profitability, and to
manage processes in an efficient way.
| 2018 |January 31

Enriching Business Operations with
Priceless Experience and Insights
An hourglass is a fascinating object for thinkers
and dreamers alike. When sand drops from an
hourglass to measure time, it fills an empty void
into a flask to capture infinite possibilities that each
moment in life brings. During each moment lived and
breathed—infinite ideas, infinite efforts, infinite
recollections and infinite intuitions fill all of us to turn
time on its head. A watch chases time like a tool; an
hourglass fills the empty void in life with an experience
full of passion.
Individuals and organizations also spend millions of
dollars, hours of calculated and focused efforts, invest in
advanced resources to capture maximum efficiency. One
company which believes in capturing the true worth of
time spent with the help of pure objectivity and
passionate efforts for true innovation enriched with
practical experience is KPS AG.
Reshaping the Present to Build a Brighter Future
KPS AG is one of Europe’s leading consulting partner
for the digital transformation. KPS works with a wide
variety of companies who wish to become customer
centric corporate leaders in a short period of time. Its
expertise lies in the digital transformation of companies
situated in the retail, fashion, and consumer markets.
KPS provides its clients with end-to-end services from
strategic guidelines for realignment and sector-specific
innovative, integrated process chains to the
implementation of cutting-edge technologies – all
through a single source. In the recent past, KPS has
delivered its clients with a 50% reduction in project
runtime and cost allowing them to introduce innovative,
digital business models faster while staying agile. Based
on the KPS methodology and the extensive knowledge
of KPS consultants about each individual sector, the
success of every project is guaranteed.
An Advice That Makes Market Leaders Sit Up and
Take Notice
KPS has become a market leader very quickly as it is
trusted by some of the most prestigious names in Europe
to deliver implementation-oriented strategy, process, and
IT consulting. KPS has simplified its approach and
focused on three central pillars to deliver results to these
clients: the in-depth industry and process experience of
KPS consultants, the proprietary KPS Rapid
Transformation approach and separating itself from the
competition with an outstanding client base. Its
prominent client base includes Hugo Boss, Lidl, Dansk
Supermarked, Deichmann, PUMA and many more. The
firm continues to taste success at every step by leading
digital transformation and process alignment across
Europe.
A Unique Solution Challenging Clients to Innovate
every day
When KPS was founded in 2000, rapid transformation
solutions were largely unheard of. KPS today reshapes
the entire business and process spectrum, from ERP e-
commerce, through to digital marketing and sales and the
successful management of big data. Additionally, it
transforms the process on all levels - the strategic,
process, application and technology level. Such an all-
encompassing methodological approach was not only
unheard of but was often unimaginable to clients. Hence,
KPS faced a challenging situation of bringing various
technology and process experts on a common platform to
make them understand the bigger picture and work in
KPS AG:
RetailRetail
| January 2018 |32

tandem with each other to deliver
optimum results. Today, the company
has moved on to solving some of the
core digital transformation
challenges of the different industries.
Today, traditional bricks and mortar
retailers experience many difﬁculties
in connecting with the increasingly
new digital customers. KPS helps
retailers understand to initiate a
refreshing dialogue with their
customer base with the help of
innovative technology solutions. The
company has successfully brought
many retailers closer to their
consumers in a real-time
Omnichannel business environment
with the help of enriching business
insights.
Translating Experience to Build a
Futuristic Vision
A consultant requires more
experience and more in-depth
understanding of a business in order
to guide clients. There are three main
things that a consultant must
understand about a business. These
include: the industry, its processes,
and the technology that drives its
potential. This requires years of
training and relevant industry
experience; a fact of life at KPS. The
ﬁrm has invested in its people,
technology and solutions to not only
gain the highest relevant experience
but to translate that experience in
building prototype solutions that
meet the needs of their clients.
Today, the team of consultants at
KPS prides themselves in their
authority on every sector.
Consistently Waving the Magic
Wand of Success
Led by Leonardo Musso, the CEO
of the company, KPS delivers top
notch transformation projects to its
clients since its formation. The
company has consistently developed,
optimized and constantly upgraded
its process characteristics and
function catalogues to stay on top of
its competitors and the latest
technological developments. KPS is
part of a very successful partner
network, including SAP Gold, SAP
Hybris Platinum, Adobe Business,
Intershop Premium, SAP ARIBA as
well as SAP Concur Partner. With
around 1,000 consultants across 12
countries, KPS with its unique
approach, network and dedicated
employees will continue to expand
its global market position through
ground-breaking projects in digital
and technological innovation and
change.
Leonardo Musso
CEO
We ensure competent, experienced,
and rapid project turnaround
‘‘‘‘
| 2018 |January 33

CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE
through an
Agile Retail
Technology
Platform
It’s simple. We all know that Customer Experience is
improved by managing the relationship through the
entire customer lifecycle, while ensuring we keep
employees and customers on the same page at all times.
To improve this Customer Experience you must get good at
closed-loop marketing. This stem of marketing continually
measures the good and bad about each campaign, as well as
tracks the relationship with the customer from Marketing,
Sales, Support and eCommerce. This stem is agile enough
to change course as needed, update processes, and retrain
employees and customers seamlessly.
The center of Agile Retail Technology has now become the
CRM system (Customer Relationship Management).
Improving the customer experience is part of the CRM
system, as it contains the master profile record of the
Customer during all stages of the buying relationship. Not
just the purchasing stage, but lead management and
nurturing, sales opportunity management, and post-sale
stages are easily accessed. This will develop a rich
customer profile that can be used to segment existing
Contacts and Accounts, as well drive Account-Based
Marketing (ABM) and Account-Based Sales activities.
Retailers today must be ready to communicate with
customers online, at any time, and self-service through their
communication channel of choice - Website, Chat, Email,
Phone, Online form submission, Text, Social, and onward.
CRM systems manage the communications and
relationships and keep interactions from all channels in one
place, attached to the Customer profile.
Forward-thinking Retailers are improving their customer
experience by making their organizations more agile, and
able to react instantaneously to change. This is achieved by
Troy Muise
CEO & Co-Founder
Salesboom.com
Retail Insights
| January 2018 |34

evolving into a digital organization. Digital transformation
is achieved by adopting a Cloud-first strategy to outsource
the heavy lifting, and innovation of the software to the
Cloud CRM vendor, leaving you to focus on the customer
experience and perfecting that.
Retail Technology platforms integrated with the CRM core
include Point of Sale (POS) joined with a Cloud CRM
system (Customer Relationship Management) and also a
cohesive backend ERP system (Enterprise Resource
Planning) so that you can see all the interactions with
customers during the entire Customer Lifecycle. Various
other apps may be integrated with this ecosystem as well
including email, phone, text, and others.
Reports on customers from pre-sales, through Sales and
closing, eCommerce, and onward through support, re-ups,
cross-sells, upsells, renewals, return engagements by the
customer help bring insight into what is working and what
is faltering. This allows one to quickly react and change
course, and retrain all internal and external customers, from
leads to customers, employees and shareholders, as well as
partners and other stakeholders.
Being Agile in retail can be the difference between survival
and failure for many retail organizations.
A Cloud-First Strategy is the way to success and the key to
being agile in this evolving marketplace.
The future of retail is to be more agile and responsive with
their existing customer processes, to reduce friction in
buying and to keep all stakeholders “on the same page” in
terms of what the Marketing, Sales, Support, and
Commerce departments are thinking.
Being “on the same page” is the landing page where the
lead or customer, as well as the employee or partner can go
to read about the process for communicating with the
company. Here they can fill out the online form, get an
immediate response, letting them know their request has
been submitted and an employee notified. In real time, an
employee is alerted of the request which is then
documented into the CRM as an item for follow-up.
Big Data is a new and huge trend among retailers in hopes
of analyzing all the various purchases and social
interactions. This helps map out new opportunities and keep
profiles enriched with the most intelligent and up-to-date
information on your customer. This leads to keeping loyalty
programs performing and customers returning for more
from your business.
Retail organizations are all watching what the 600 pound
gorilla in the room, Amazon.com, is doing while also trying
to maximize revenues from each of the retail locations.
Amazon is releasing an automated store named AmazonGo,
requiring no checkout employees, where RFID tags are
placed on each product. Buyers enter the store, pull
products on and off the shelf, and check out automatically
by passing through and electronic gate, much like a metal
detector scanner.
The customer’s card is billed automatically and if there is
not enough funds, an alarm goes off. No employees needed,
other than one employee at the front watching and
answering questions, restocking shelves, etc. No need for a
checkout. This may seem like a final assault by Amazon on
retailers, but in reality Amazon’s only retail competitor is
Walmart. One could easily see Amazon leasing their
technologies to bring “brick and mortar” Retail new life by
not only reducing expenses by reducing staff, but also by
tagging your inventory with Amazon tags. This means you
instantly can sell them in your store and on Amazon’s e-
store simultaneously, with the same infrastructure and the
same software. This is the ‘offer you can’t refuse’ that
Amazon may be putting forth to all retailers, in a bid to take
over all physical locations, while already dominating the
online retail space, and letting Walmart try and deal with
this.
One interesting and brand new way of monetizing space is
by combining servers that run CRM and back-office
software systems, but also come with Bitcoin Miners that
mine Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies. The overhead in a
business including leasing the space, heating it, electricity,
employees, insurance, etc., need to be paid whether you are
having a slow night or not, so why not be mining Bitcoin
on-site to help pay the bills? The jury is out on whether this
is a great solution for all retail organizations, and there are
many risks to educate yourself on about Cryptocurrencies,
however the idea of mining currency as an alternate income
strategy to boost location performance is another tool in the
arsenal to keep in mind.
| January 2018 | 35

Transforming Technology for
Faster and Deeper Insights
An industry leader in data analysis and presentation
software, Interactive Edge has been serving the
consumer goods industry to enhance productivity
and efficiency for over 20 years. Interactive Edge provides
shopper and category management data analysts, marketing
and field sales teams with the award- winning XP3®
software solution that helps them deliver customized
category and shopper insight data in presentation format to
retail buyers. Its XP3® platform helps to integrate multiple
data sources directly into Microsoft PowerPoint® and
Excel® to speed up the process of creating dynamic, data
rich presentations and dashboards. On average, it reduces
the time spent by over 80%.
Customer Management, Visionary Innovation, and Demand
Data Analytics are some of the areas where Interactive
Edge has been winning several industry awards.
Initial Challenges leading to Triumph
Interactive Edge was one of the very first companies to
create customizable Category Management software called
CMS-Pro®. They have successfully completed
implementations for many of the largest CPG companies
including Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Hormel, Pepsi-Cola
and many more. CMS-Pro® was designed to require very
little effort on the part of the casual end-user who only
needed to make limited selections such as retailer, time
period or product/category to refresh and update an entire
presentation or report. While this was proven to be very
effective, in order to meet the requirements of each retailer,
additional analytical slides needed to be added which fell
upon Interactive Edge’s support team to complete this task.
As Interactive Edge ultimately wanted to put all of the
power in the client’s hands, a new solution was developed
that would meet the need for additional flexibility. XP3®
Suite was developed to meet the needs of both field account
sales who required a simple user interface as well as
analysts who needed it to be powerful enough to easily
import and flexibly explore data to simplify the process of
building and maintaining business intelligence analytical
presentations and reports. The XP3® Suite software can be
implemented as either a desktop or enterprise solution.
Ground Breaking Services of Interactive Edge
The Interactive Edge support team works very closely with
the client organization to understand the needs of those who
are “power” users and the sales organization so that the
software is implemented to deliver the business benefits
they were looking to achieve by using Xp3®.
The flexible, scalable design of XP3® allows clients to
deploy as much or as little functionality as their business
environment requires. XP3’s front–end analysis and
automated presentation development tools can be layered
over existing data management solutions to enhance and
extend their value, or XP3’s full functionality can be
leveraged by implementing its back-end data loading and
integrated data warehouse functionality to meet robust
information management requirements.
Future Roadmap of Interactive Edge
Interactive Edge is currently working on the next version of
Interactive Edge:
RetailRetail
| January 2018 |36

their software: a cloud based solution
that incorporates the easy to use
interface and rich features their clients
have come to expect from Interactive
Edge. Interactive Edge is also
expanding their professional services
team to provide more services to more
organizations as many CPG
organizations are facing signiﬁcant
staff reductions. E-commerce will also
be another area of focus as online
purchasing continues to impact brick
and mortar retailers.
Strategic Leader Accelerating
Success
Zel Bianco is the Co-founder,
President and CEO of Interactive
Edge. As an industry leader for over 25
years, he has been a member of the
Category Management Association
since its inception and has contributed
his and the Interactive Edge’s team’s
expertise in the association’s ground-
breaking changes such as the updating
of the category management process to
Category Management 2.0, as well as
support for many industry white papers
including Category Management
Mastery- the Key to Growth and many
others.
Zel is the member of the DePaul
University Sales Leadership and
Category Management Advisory Board
and a frequent speaker at the Category
Management Association Annual
Conference and other industry events.
He is also a member of Retail Wire’s
Brain Trust and a regular contributor to
the Retail Wire daily on-line newsletter
and blog. Zel and Interactive Edge also
won the prestigious Demo Jam Award
at the SAP TechEd SAPPHIRE User
Conference against hundreds of
contestants.
Zel’s main focus is on driving value for
Interactive Edge’s clients and their
retail customers by helping clients to
build better connections between raw
data sources and the category
management and shopper insights
professionals who need to generate
insights and actionable
recommendations to their retail buyers.
He also contributes his time and
resources to help students at a number
of universities seek a career in CPG or
related industries.
Zel Bianco
Co-founder, President,
& CEO
Generating actionable insights and recommendations, and
presenting them on a recurring basis, gives you greater credibility
and positions you as a trusted advisor to your retail customers‘‘ ‘‘
| 2018 |January 37

Retailin the
Digital Age:
Focusing on the Three Things
C
ustomer buying patterns, as well as evolving
consumer behavior, lays the groundwork as to why
the real-time monitoring of operations, promotions,
and financial performance are mission critical to today’s
modern retailer. These businesses, with numerous locations
and large workforces, are challenged with the problem of
ensuring that employees from the top to the bottom of their
organization are aligned around the same goals and
objectives. This alignment is especially important
considering the need to address ever-changing objectives
driven by customer, corporate, seasonal, and promotional
mandates that impact their bottom line.
While there are endless initiatives that retailers can focus
their energy on, we have found that adhering to “The Three
Things” is the most informed method to channeling their
transactional data. By focusing on optimizing sales,
promotion performance and improving profits; a retailer can
turn their available data into tangible action plans.
Sales Optimization: Streamline your revenue-generating
activities
Every time a customer visits your store and interacts with a
sales associate, your organization has the opportunity to not
only make a sale but also increase the average order size.
For example, a specialty apparel retailer can upsell belts
with slacks, jewelry with a blouse, socks with shoes, etc.
This is common knowledge but what isn’t always known is
what upsell items are the most lucrative at a regional or
district level. What we have found is that many retailers
understand the right product mix to bundle but store
management isn’t always convinced as to what should be
the A, B or C option for the team on the floor to focus on.
This can be solved by focusing what is already embedded in
their enterprise-wide TLog data.
Driving more value from Omni-Channel
There are many times when an omni-channel sale could
lead to an in-store upsell but this is rarely tracked…until
now. For example, a customer buys a product online and
then returns it to their local store. By focusing on historical
omni-channel data, some retailers have found that a sales-
eroding activity of a return can actually drive an additional
sale if associates are trained properly. Because many online
products are not part of a store’s inventory and are typically
shipped back to distribution or sold as a one-off item, they
can be viewed as a quick loss but in reality if you can
isolate which items are being returned across your entire
enterprise, you can have a complimentary offering made
readily available to your sales associates as an upsell item.
Now the loss of a return can strategically offset with the
right training and offer.
Stopping Rewards Program Abuse
Some retailers may be surprised to know that some of their
customers know their promotion activity better than their
own marketing department does. For example, one retailer
put a Rewards Points Program in place to reward loyal
customers, and the retailer’s marketing department believed
the program was very successful. However, the operational
team analyzed components of the program in depth and
made some startling discoveries.
DigiPerspective
| January 2018 |40

Russ Hawkins
President & CEO
Agilence
A veteran in the technology space,
Russ Hawkins, the President
and CEO of Agilence, has
shouldered the responsibility of the
company and spearheaded its
overall strategy to lead it towards
success. Formerly, Russ was the
President and CEO of two early
stage tech companies, SilverStorm
Technologies and Paragon
Networks. The Boston graduate
also boasts 15 years of experience
at Lucent Technologies, wherein he
helmed various management
positions.
About the Author
When first rolled out, the Rewards Program had no limits
on the points a customer could collect and noticed that
some customers had racked up several hundred thousand
points a year (versus the average customer who would get
2500 points a year). Using a data analytics system to
analyze their transactional data, the retailer discovered that
these high-reward “customers” were reselling the retailer’s
merchandise on eBay and ordering the merchandise the
eBay customers ordered on Mr. Rebates. This meant that
the high-rewards customer (e.g., reseller) was getting cash
back from Mr. Rebates, and as a rewards member, was
eligible for free shipping as well, although the reseller still
charged the eBay customer for shipping. The reseller
carried no inventory and did not handle returns, making the
reseller a fulfilment center.
Even though the retailer was recognizing revenues on this
type of activity, the retailer’s margins were significantly
impacted, and the resellers were wiping out the retailer’s
inventory. Worst yet, the retailer’s true customers, who were
expecting a good shopping experience, were denied that
because the resellers were buying up the inventory.
Once the retailer identified this type of rewards program
abuse, the organization decided to put a cap on the number
of annual points a Rewards customer could earn to put a
stop to this activity.
However, without data analysis, this retailer would have
continued to believe that the program was successful when
in fact it was eroding their margins and depleting their
inventory.
| 2018 |January 41

Offering Reliable Solutions for Telecom,
Data Center, Cloud and Fiber Verticals at
the Guaranteed Best Price
The consulting agent industry has changed
considerably, and so has the provider industry --
there are enormous, exciting changes happening
right now. Agents don’t survive long if they don’t know
how to advise on new technologies like SD-WAN and cloud
technologies and strategy. The industry has changed from a
legacy telecommunications industry (think legacy AT&T,
Verizon, etc.) with many players and competitors, to a
merging industry with fewer large players vying for the
same business around the country. If we look back a few
years, there are many companies that just don’t exist
anymore – and not just because of big mergers that gobbled
up giants like Level 3 and XO. Consolidation means fewer
yet larger providers, and what they eventually become,
aside from selling internet and phone service, is essentially
a logo and contract vehicle for emerging technologies. All
big telecom providers like AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink
are selling SD-WAN, cloud services and consolidated
broadband -- but they’re typically not the actual creations of
those companies. So, what does the customer actually
purchase? Sure, they may be buying Velocloud from AT&T,
but what they’re really buying is the team behind the
product and the comfort of a brand.
Shamrock Consulting Group provides expert solutions for
telecom, datacom, colocation, fiber and public and private
cloud. Shamrock does everything from writing and running
complex RFP’s for larger opportunities, to simple shopping
for smaller clients.
They analyze billing to come up with an accurate ROI for a
project, get the best pricing and contract language possible,
makes sure everything is installed in a timely manner, and
manage the deal until the client is 100% satisfied. They
have over 150 carriers in their growing portfolio, which
ensures that their clients always get the best available
services and options for the best available price. The
organization does everything from researching fiber maps,
to digging into the finances of each deal, to working in the
best legal language possible. They work from beginning to
end on solutions for a variety of different technologies, and
their goal is to establish a long-term partnership with their
clients based on trust while cutting their time and effort by
an average of 80%.
Fascinating Journey of Shamrock Consulting Group
The journey for Shamrock has been one of a single owner,
to the first sales and support people, to a formal company,
and it’s been a fun and rewarding journey. President and
CEO Paul Cooney, along with his business partner and VP
Ben Ferguson, developed their initial push to focus on
customer acquisition and revenue, which Shamrock has
always done very well. They had very little support and
staff, no processes, and if you sold a deal, you had to do
everything.
The initial struggle was just about getting revenue at the
door. It was pretty simple – they were not manufacturing
products or anything like that – they had to sell services and
keep customers happy. The biggest turning point was after
about a year and a half when Shamrock started hiring
support people for non-sales-related roles. Paul is a big fan
of hiring people to do specific jobs, so each team member
can focus on their core role. As they grow, what Paul sees is
simply more specialization of work. Every hire changes the
dynamic of the company, and luckily for them, everyone
who has come on board has provided an immensely
positive impact on the team as a whole.
Shamrock Consulting Group:
RetailRetail
| January 2018 |42

Paul Cooney, The Man behind
Shamrock Consulting Group
Paul grew up in the small town of
Pleasantville, NY and graduated from
the University of Richmond. After
moving to Boston, he found early
success selling fixed wireless for
Teligent, Inc. (a dot-com casualty) in
the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Seeking
stability during the tumultuous burst of
the dot-coms and ubiquitous telecom
bankruptcies, he headed out West to
Hermosa Beach, CA and worked for
AT&T as an enterprise sales
representative. Paul worked his way up
to the top rep in the country before
taking over the struggling Los Angeles
sales team. According to Paul, the
turnaround for the LA sales team was
lengthy yet rewarding. “It took me 6
months to turn the team around,” Paul
says, “But we eventually went from the
worst team in the country to
consistently one of the best.”
Shamrock Sees Industry Challenges
as Opportunities to Excel
The biggest challenges are, in Paul’s
opinion, typically a good thing for
Shamrock. It’s a challenge for
customers to keep up with ever-
changing technology trends, but
fortunately that’s something Shamrock
does well. They have a fluid business
model and can constantly bring on new
partnerships to meet the needs of the
changing technology trends. A few
years ago, nobody was selling cloud
services, and now they’re not only
selling cloud, but are also providing
cloud management applications to help
with cost analytics and projections.
Company mergers are a constant, new
competitors will always pop up, and
technologies will always evolve. That’s
the way their industry moves, and Paul
believes that competition and
challenges across an industry helps to
separate the top agents from the rest.
The Future is Bright for Shamrock
Continued growth, new product
solutions and more formalized
processes are all in the near future for
Shamrock. They are hiring more
superstars, which is always a mix of
stress and excitement – the company
really wants everyone to fit into the
“family.” They are opening up two new
offices soon, and that will bring its own
set of natural challenges, but in a good
way – they know that they need to
expand, and they’re excited about the
opportunity to take over new markets.
In the past few years they have been
implementing formal processes and
systems, which have helped them to
keep track of everything, from orders
to contracts to commissions. The future
for Shamrock is expansion by way of
doing more of the same, with more
people, in more places.
Paul Cooney
Founder & CEO
Through new product solutions and more formalized
processes, Shamrock expects continued growth and
success in 2018 and beyond.
‘‘
‘‘
| 2018 |January 43

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