Impact21Group Blog

Funny Friday: You can’t believe it!

2010-10-01T08:17:00.002-04:00

OK, so this is not a typical “funny” funny Friday post but as I read this online article, I did wonder “can you believe it?” As we’ve met with c-store retailers over the past few months we are hearing that business is improving and that’s great.

Unfortunately, some of that improvement has to be taken with a grain of salt, i.e., 2010 improved over 2009 but are we even back to where we were in 2008 or 2007?

Anyway, you might find these numbers interesting and given the source, The NPD Group’s Convenience Store Monitor, I think you can believe it.

NPD's c-store market research finds that c-store store traffic was up by 8%, and sales increased 11% in the quarter ending June 2010 compared to the same quarter a year ago.

In addition to a traffic and sales boost in the second quarter, NPD's Convenience Store Monitor, which tracks the consumer purchasing behavior of more than 49,000 c-store shoppers in the United States, reported that the average number of visits consumers made to a c-store in an average 30-day period grew to 6.4 in second-quarter 2010 from 6.1 visits for the same quarter in 2009.

Find the full online article here: http://www.cspnet.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=6B4D9777B89145C3ACD3CD28DDFA9A7A&AudID=B1DB1F916652441DA5A92F5041234756

New Item Selection

2010-09-22T07:48:00.000-04:00

An ongoing challenge for category managers specifically and convenience store retailers generally is the process of selecting new items. History shows that the majority of new items fail to meet their manufacturer’s sales objectives. So how do we winnow out the potential winners from the losers?

A first step is to simply ask the product supplier some questions.
• What market research do you have to support consumer demand for this product?
• What marketing support are you conducting to launch this product?
• What is your target market?
• What makes you think your target market matches my company’s customer profile (why would consumers buy this product in a C-store)?
• With what other products (yours or your competitors) will this product compete?

If a supplier wants to bring a new item into your store, they should be able to provide answers to these questions and those answers should go to the person responsible for making the decision on whether or not to authorize the new item.
• Is this product likely to bring new customers to the category?
• Is this new business, or is it transferring sales dollars from another product(s) in other categories?
• What historical data do you have from other retailers a) in all channels, b) in the C-store channel, c) in my markets, d) in other markets?
• Which of your company’s products would you recommend I replace with this product, if any?
• Have you estimated annual sales and gross profit this product can be expected to generate in an average store in my chain?

Some companies have a rating scale for each question. Based on the feedback from suppliers, they get a certain rating (numerical 1-5 or qualitative high/med/low). In that case, the retailer would need to provide definitions of the ratings for each question, based on their individual businesses.

New items have the potential to generate consumer interest, store excitement, and incremental business. The process of bringing in new items – from setting them up in pricebook to getting them into distribution and included in store plan-o-grams and delisting items they replace – can be time-consuming and not without cost. Let’s improve our odds by asking some questions first.

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant
Impact 21 Group

Consumer Loyalty

2010-09-13T09:38:00.001-04:00

What is Consumer Loyalty? Primarily, it is a method of enticing a consumer to become a repeat consumer. For decades, retailers and service organization have tried various methods to get a consumer back into their shops or use their services. The simplest of all these is price cuts and low price guarantee.

While pricing always remains a major reason for a consumer to shop at a certain place or use the services of a certain service provider, it is generally much harder to sustain low pricing for too long which creates "opportunity shoppers" who return only when there are deep discounts.

Another popular option is to create a points or rewards program. These are also very common among airlines and hotels, but over period of time, the consumer start to get rewards from a multiple competitors thus eliminating the basis for the rewards. Since the rewards need to be accumulated over a sustained period of time and redemption of these rewards is a cumbersome process, customers lose interest in the rewards programs. Such consumers become regular bargain hunting consumers who will are willing to either forego the rewards numbers, or only look at a program after they have already decided on the purchase. Very seldom the consumer decides to pay a premium price because they can get reward points from a particular vendor.

The emerging trends in consumer reward and loyalty program lies in fast and easy paybacks. Some retailers are now opting for cash based returns. The retailers offer cash back programs as a percentage of the basket size and the consumer can use the cash rewards in lieu of any product or service offered by the retailer. Some send cash back checks and yet others offer the cash rewards as credits to cash cards. There are also specials offered to consumer on the basis of the purchases that a consumer makes allowing for an up-sale opportunity for the customer.

Another emerging trend is fast accumulation of reward points. While shopping at a particular retailer may be way to accumulate rewards, the retailers are now getting together to offer common reward programs that allow accumulation of points or rewards by shopping at many participating retailers and service providers. The idea behind is that non-competing retailers can get together to create a common pool of reward points for the consumer and thus entice the consumer to return to any of the participating retailers. Some or all of these retailers may also allow for redemption of the accumulated rewards as well.

Either way, there are significant changes happening in how rewards and loyalty programs affect a consumer these days. As competition becomes sharper and bottom lines become thinner among the vendors, we can expect new innovations in the area of loyalty and rewards programs. Some of these will give birth to a virtual currency of rewards points that will become a parallel method of payment in the near future.

As these innovative methods of loyalty accrual and redemption keep hopping along, we should be prepared to innovate and embrace for major changes in the loyalty and rewards programs as consumers, retailers or service providers. In the cycle of consumerism, change is the only constant and rewards programs are no exception!

Chandan Mukherjee
Vice President – Retail Payment Applications
ISTS Worldwide Inc.

Computer song...to the theme of Beverly Hillbillies

2010-09-10T08:54:00.002-04:00

How many of you can remember the tune for the theme song from the 1960s show “The Beverly Hillibilies? Have fun with this fun tune I found on the internet – author unknown.

Computer Song To be sung with the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies:
Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Ted, A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed. But then one day he was talking to a recruiter who said, "they'll pay big bucks if ya work on a computer".. UNIX, that is....Windows XP....Workstations...C++...VB

Well, the first thing ya know ol' Ted's an engineer. The kinfolk said "Ted, move away from here". They said "Arizona is the place you oughta be" so he bought some donuts and he moved to Ahwatukee... Intel, that is....dry heat... no amusement parks.....

On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube. Fed him lots of donuts and sat him at a tube. They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!" OT, that is ...unpaid...mandatory.....

The weeks rolled by and things were looking bad. Schedules started slipping and some managers were mad. They called another meeting and decided on a fix. the answer's very simple..."we'll work him sixty-six!" Tired, that is.. stressed out.. no social life....

Months turned into years and his hair was turning gray. Ted worked very hard while his life just slipped away Waiting to retire when he turned 64, instead he got a call and escorted out the door. Laid off, that is...de-briefed...unemployed.

Now the moral of the story is, do what you are told, companies will use you and discard you when you're old. So gather up your friends and start your own firm, Beat the competition, watch old bosses squirm. Millionaires that is.....Bill Gates...Steve Jobs... Ya'll come back now, ya hear.

There! Now get back to work!

Patti Safford

GAP Analysis- Finding out what you don’t know!

2010-09-07T20:52:00.001-04:00

Often we view our business with such a certain perspective that we assume we have needs that are not being met, both internally and externally. What I found lately is that once the key stakeholders begin the GAP process, then the support team begins to discover that small issues escalate into larger issues. Take for example this situation. Working closely with a client recently lead to some discoveries internally that was not known to the key stakeholders. Though not a big issue, this small assumption made havoc for the progression of the current and unrelated project. Often we see situations where clients begin the initial steps for their strategic planning without first undergoing a GAP Analysis.

It is with this assumption without a GAP Analysis that can bring to forefront issues that are not always found at the surface. Whether it is an infrastructure or business alignment discovery, which are by the way, two issues that are most often overlooked, bringing all stakeholders together on common grounds with common goals can be the earliest beginnings of a strategic plan that companies should consider.

Our GAP Analysis is designed to look at not just the GAP, but to align the business processes. By reviewing all processes, we provide your company with insight into areas which could be improved.

Funny Friday

2010-09-03T07:30:00.001-04:00

“You won’t believe what I just heard!” Have you ever had someone say that to you or maybe you’ve said it yourself? Someone just said something so outlandish it is painfully obvious they are wrong. Then again, sometimes what seems to defy “conventional wisdom” turns out to be an accurate forecast.

What history should teach us, at the very least, is to not be so darn certain that we know what’s going to happen. Do you think these folks would like the chance to take back their statements?

Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it impossibility--a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.
- Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
- Thomas J. Watson, 1943, Chairman of the Board of IBM

This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1876

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates, 1981

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

In 1939 The New York Times said the problem of TV was that people had to glue their eyes to a screen, and that the average American wouldn't have time for it.

An English astronomy professor in the early 19th century said that air travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would suffocate.

Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911

With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.
- Business Week, 1958

Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, October 16, 1929.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant
Impact 21 Group

Portal Technology – Help Desk

2010-08-31T07:30:00.001-04:00

As budgets get squeezed there are more and more reasons to look at automating tasks in your IT organization. This frees up your IT staff to focus on mission critical networks and applications. One way of automating is through an IT Help Desk Portal. These portals manage your entire technology infrastructure with one central management interface. They are typically built by System Administrators for System Administrators. Deploying an IT portal will increase the efficiency of your technical support staff and provide powerful, Enterprise Level Support in an IT Solution Provider or Corporate IT Department environment. Help Desk Portals will not only increase efficiency, but also allow you to measure this improvement in efficiency with its built-in, robust ticketing and technical resource management system.

When selecting an IT portal you should look for one with an arsenal of IT management tools with one interface. Our advice to clients is to stop using multiple, separate programs for remote desktop, monitoring, trouble ticket tracking, user information, support and software management and all the other instruments used to manage your business. The importance of the all in one approach means better data collection for recognizing trends within the issues and the ability to rollout patches that solve the problem before the users are even aware of the problem.

Please note these portals do not force your business to switch to Managed Services with the deployment of the system. They give you the ability to start a hybrid, on-call support and managed services environment, so you can have a controlled business model change. Whether you have an enterprise corporation with a helpdesk and server team or a one person IT company, you should be able to customize the portal to meet your business needs.

Choose a system that is simple to deploy and offers technical support during the trial period. Once you start using the IT portal, you will wonder how you provided computer support without it.

As always we look forward to all your great comments.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

What’s Driving Your Business?

2010-08-11T10:52:00.000-04:00

During the upcoming NACS Advanced Category Management workshop in Charlotte September 8 and 9 we will explore the answers to that question in some detail. In today’s post I wanted to share with you at a high level what is driving the c-store industry’s business.

According to the NACS SOI report powered by CSX, five categories contributed nearly 80 percent of inside sales dollars and slightly different five generated nearly three-fourths of the gross profit dollars.

See tables below.

                           Percent of                                            GP$
        Category     Inside Sales                     Category      Cont.
1      Cigarettes    32.7%                         1     Food Service      26.1%
2      Packaged     14.1%                         2     Packaged           18.1%
        Beverages                                               Beverages
3      Food            13.9%                          3     Cigarettes           17.7%
        Service
4      Beer             10.2%                        4      Beer                   5.9%
5      OTP             3.9%                             5     Candy                 4.6%
     Total of          78.3%                             Total of               72.4%
       Top 5                                                       Top 5

So what is driving your business? How are you doing in these categories? Do you know? Can you peel back the layers and understand what drives the business at the sub-category or segment level? How are your other categories performing? And how do they interact with each other?

Sounds overwhelming and it can be a challenge but as the old saying goes “a journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.” If you can’t answer the questions posed above, I suggest you take the first step today and at the very least determine how you’re doing in these categories and begin to understand what drives your business.

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant
Impact 21 Group

Portal Technology – Inbound Marketing

2010-08-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

Today we will briefly discuss inbound marketing. The method or approach is relatively simple and involves first getting discovered or found online. Next is to convert your hits into qualified leads. Lastly to measure your success and determine how well you are able to manage the sales process after you have received the qualified lead.

To be totally blunt most our clients are overwhelmed with what appears to be a straight forward process. In most cases we end up managing this process for them as they don’t have time to dedicate to this important activity. So how do we manage this process of Blogging, SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing, Content Management and the like? Ready? A portal! You knew I was going to get there didn’t you.

In order for us to manage multiple client sites it has become important for us to deploy portal technology to manage content, lead generating and sales campaigns. Our clients that have the time, inclination, and internal resources have found this portal to be invaluable and have immediately realized a ROI that could not be achieved through classic media (TV, Print, and Mail). They have realized that increasing hits, begets increased leads, and qualifying and managing leads in their sales pipeline produces more sales.

Now, please don’t think for one minute that the portal is going to solve all of your marketing and sales issues. The portal by itself does nothing. If you have a wonderful guitar and never pick it up and play it you will never realize the music you can produce. The portal is there to facilitate the tasks associated with inbound marketing process. If your team follows a well thought out marketing campaign the portal will help you manage the process. It will generate analytical information allowing you to tweak the campaign as your marketing year progresses.

As always we look forward to all your great comments.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Retail Store Management Tips

2010-08-09T17:36:00.000-04:00

Researching blog content across the gamut of information on the Internet brought this valuable article to light. The full article can be found at http://www.buzzle.com/articles/retail-store-management-tips.html

“The job of a retail store manager is overseeing the everyday running of a retail store. Some of the key retail services performed by a retail store manager are: Meeting sales targets as well as customer satisfaction via maximizing the shopping experience of customers; and managing all aspects of the operations of the store in order to ensure maximum sales as well as profitability. Retail management also includes focusing on key initiatives in business, daily cost control in operations, risk management, payroll management, loss prevention, inventory management, marketing execution, and store presentation.”

“Retail store managers should have organizational skills which includes the ability of paying attention to detail as well as following-up matters. The job also involves the capability of managing multiple priorities along with management skills like communication, recruiting, training, and coaching.”

“Here are some tips that can help you to become a successful retail store manager:

The customer is always right
Make the customer feel special
Please the customer
Promise less and deliver more
Appearances do matter
Display merchandise attractively
Items should be shown to advantage
Get rid of unsold merchandise
Clear up shopping areas
Timely ordering of inventory
Hire the right people
Training the staff
Incorporating time management skills
Long range planning”

Chuck Young

Impact 21 Group

Keep the Ball Rolling

2010-07-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

Let’s say you are working on a project where the project manager is missing in action. You are CRANKING on your work but are not sure how to move forward in a particular area, which has brought you to a halt. What would you do?

A. Bag it and call it a day!

B. Reach out to the project sponsor to set a fire under the project manager.

C. Take the initiative and make contact with the project manager and request a meeting to keep the project on task.

Answer (A) will make for a great day but could lead to a poor project. Answer (B) will start a fire alright, but not one you can put out easily. Answer (C) reflects leadership on your part.

Remember to think ahead of the game. Think about not only the long term success of the project, but how you can set yourself ahead of the pack.

By: Lisa Stewart, President

Digital Fortress

2010-07-05T07:30:00.000-04:00

Is there anything like a Digital Fortress? Can someone come up with a fortress that can hold data and be protected with five levels of security that would require 200 quantum computers and an unlimited time to break?

Given that there would be something like this that can hold customer data, what would people that want to get this data do? Nothing? No, they would somehow just click a picture of it from an in-built camera in a mobile phone when it shows up on screen somehow. QED.

Thats how most of these events work. The weakest link is the give-away. Hackers find the weakest spot and turn it into a charmer. More often than not, its really a very long time before someone discovers how the data was stolen, and an un-imaginable number of theories are floated around, and then millions of dollars are spent investigating the how on the breach. This is the truth. They will not come and look in your shredder to get your card data. They will steal the card data that they want from large databases. In millions. As Schnier on security puts it "I'm sure every one of us has a credit card in our wallet whose number has been stolen. It'll probably never be used for fraudulent purposes, but it's in some stolen database somewhere."

Are current security systems that govern our payment systems adequate in provide protection for the customer? One would not think so, as some of the recent breaches that have occurred have taken places with PCI certified payment companies, or retailers. Examples would be Heartland and Forever 21, both of them complained and both breached around the same time. Hackers found very innovative ways of either getting into the fortress, or actually waiting for someone to unlock the data from there, so that they could view it. Its not PCI that makes an organization or system risk averse.

There is certainly a lack of understanding PCI, its derivations and its implementations. I recently met two EMV experts fighting over the fact that a key was supposed to be stored in the crypto chip permanently or temporarily as PCI warrants. They both were right, its only that they read the PCI specifications a little differently. And implemented either way, they both would have cleared the PCI certification.

Its true that the only network security is an "inch of air" between two computers. Its also true that this is not reality. How does one really secure all the gaping holes that are exposed from time to time? Its a very difficult thing to achieve, and thirteen or twenty-one points written on a piece of paper certainly cannot do that. Achieving end-to-end security is a very difficult task, but thats the only solution to this problem.

Vivek Awasthi

Are we prepared?

2010-07-01T08:45:00.000-04:00

Are we prepared?

- May 6, 2010 – “Nashville flood damage may top $1 billion”

- May 14, 2010 – “Flash flood warnings in San Antonio”

- June 17, 2010 – “Oklahoma City flooding: 9 streets still closed because of flood”

In looking back at our recent rash of flooding incidents that have occurred so far this year, with little to no notice, I have to wonder are we prepared to handle a disaster that may knock out our data center, or even just our ability to get to our offices for any length of time? Is there a plan in place to allow us to recover mission critical applications with minimal loss of data and service?

Wikipedia defines Disaster Recovery as the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.

So the question is – “Do you have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place?” If you don’t, or even if you do, some key items to consider are:

- Is it well documented?

Where are the procedure documents stored?
When was it last reviewed and updated?
Does it prioritize employee safety?
Does it include all facilities such as warehouses and stores?

- Are systems and databases backed-up on a regular / frequent basis?
- Are the back-ups stored off-site? (no – the car trunk is not considered “Off-Site”)
- Is there a recovery plan in place for use of a facility which includes:

Servers able to handle the current capacity
Communication Links
Facilities for staff members

- Has the offsite recovery been tested recently?

With our ever increasing reliance on technology to run our business and allow us to communicate both internally and externally, Are We Really Prepared?

Pete Rudd
Impact 21 Group

“The Food Museum”

2010-06-30T07:30:00.004-04:00

When I was the grocery category for a multi-state convenience retailer, an account representative from a large consumer packaged goods company used the term “food museum” to describe the grocery section of many (most?) c-stores. The rep. said, “Sure people walk down those aisles, but they just look, seldom touch, and rarely buy anything.”

Unfortunately, for many c-store retailers, the “food museum” still exists in their stores. They change price tags occasionally, dust the packages, front and face but don’t ring up enough of the product to make it profitable.

There could be several reasons the products aren’t selling. Here are three.

1. The products aren’t the correct ones for the store’s customer base.

2. The pricing is too high.

3. The assortment mix is not optimized.

There could be others, such as poor merchandising, inadequate signage, etc., but the three listed above are of a more strategic nature and may require deeper analysis to correct. Here are “quick start” solutions to each of these situations.

1) Work with trusted vendor partners to discover whether or not the store is carrying the most popular items for its market. As surprising as it may be, rarely do we find retailers carrying all the top items.

2) Perform price checks against primary competitors on key items (i.e., top selling items). You don’t have to match or beat your primary competitor on every item in the category or sub-category, and your pricing strategy should be guided by your category role and sub-category strategies, but at least benchmark against competition to ensure price is not a barrier to sales.

3) Analysis assortment mix by A) ensuring the set contains top selling items, B) space allocation provides for sufficient days-of-supply to avoid out-of-stocks on the top movers and C) identify “candidates for delisting.” While we preach to never make a decision based on one point of data, a Pareto chart is a good first step in identifying underperformers.

Pareto Analysis

You no doubt have seen a Pareto curve. It represents the percentage of SKUs required to reach a certain level of the category (or sub-category or segment) sales, i.e., 80%, 90%. In this example, the top 9 selling items (28%) out of the total 32 account for 80% of sales. Not quite the 80/20 rule but close! The top 14 (44%) account for 90% of sales. Obviously, the other 56% contribute only 10% of sales. It may be wise to consider some of those for delisting. However, consider other reasons you may want to keep them in the set, i.e., variety, uniqueness, customer loyalty, etc. Remember “never make a decision based on one point of data!”

Portal Technology – Single Sign-On (SSO)

2010-06-29T07:30:00.001-04:00

Single Sign-On (SSO) is the Big Foot of the intranet world: People hear about it and even believe it exists, but they've yet to see it for real.

In our experience, it is clear that single sign-on can dramatically improve user productivity and satisfaction, as well as immensely reduce support costs. (A larger proportion of help desk calls are related to password problems.) For many companies single sign-on is more of a hope than a practical possibility.

Our research has confirmed single sign-on's potential — and its elusiveness.

True single sign-on (SSO) was and is extraordinarily rare. We can only conclude that it's very difficult to achieve, despite its promise. That said, we're starting to see an interesting, pragmatic approach to reduced sign-on. The goal is to work as hard as you can to reduce the number of authentication requests users encounter each day, even if you can't get it down to one. You can also reduce frustration by informing users about the impending login request before they click the link that activates the demand.

We have successfully integrated our portal with our clients' security overlay to create a single sign-on environment. Our clients' portal usage has increased dramatically having accomplished this small feat. Clients feel more ownership and responsibility now that they have instant access after they sign into their network.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Supply Chain Management

2010-06-24T08:41:00.000-04:00

If you order 1 time per week (every 7 days), do you really need 29 days of supply on hand?

Portal Technology – Set Phasers To Stun

2010-06-22T08:37:00.000-04:00

I will be showing my age with this blog. When I was a young lad there was a TV series called Star Trek. Some of you may have heard of this show. I was reminded of this show over the past weekend as the movie series was playing on one of those fancy movie channels.

When I got into consulting 25 years ago my first assignment was to build tools for managing meetings for success using technology to record the meeting content. It took executives a while to get used to their words being projected on a white screen instead of cryptic writing on a flip chart. One interesting dynamic of using technology to collect meeting content in real-time was that people participated more accurately and engaged in a deeper level of thinking. It solved a problem for us in that we didn’t have to type the flip charts up after the meeting; only to hand them out at the next meeting, and have people argue with whether or not they made any agreements during the previous meeting. This was a costly time waster.

The downfall of this new technology was that you had to cart around a huge projector and computer. It looked so easy on Star Trek. You walk into a room and say “computer on” and voila there is data you need. How nice it would be to walk up to any computer connected to the internet and login to your portal and access your data.
A potential client called us in to present our portal technology to solve a challenge they had. In preparation we asked if they had a conference room with internet connection, computer, and projection device. They confirmed and we showed up. We logged in to the portal and began our demonstration. They were stunned. We had full access to all information necessary to solve their challenge. The portal delivered not only the content they needed but also the application. No software besides their browser was needed. They saw us manage process right before their eyes. Walking away from that meeting made me realize that we have finally come to the point of managing process content and delivering it through a secure portal on any computer. No more lugging around PCs and projectors. Just like those flip communicator devices in Star Trek we are able access our portal from our cell phones from anywhere on the planet.

Beam me up Scotty!!!

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

GAP Analysis-- What do you see?

2010-06-17T20:30:00.001-04:00

At first, a spark plug...a common car part looks rather simple on the surface. Let’s face it, how many of us actually know where to find it under the hood of our cars, let alone the complex function that it provides. When we begin to look at our current systems and processes are we much the same?

A properly gapped plug will be wide enough to burn hot, but not so wide that it skips or misses at high speeds, nor cause the cylinders to drag, or the engine to begin to rattle. As you look at your business is it well tuned? Have you taken the time to find out if the gap is too wide or too narrow?

As a spark plug ages, and the metal of both the tip and hook erode, the gap will tend to widen. That is what happens in essence to our business process. As our business grows older, the gap in processes and efficiencies begin to broaden, leaving you behind as the sputtering and knocking begins. Imagine the “spark” that occurs in a spark plug as an investment in resources or technologies. If that “spark” is producing or performing at a level below its potential, then it’s time to conduct a “gap” analysis- no pun intended!

Our Gap Analysis is designed to look at not just the gap, but align the business processes. By reviewing all processes, we provide your company with insight into areas which could be improved. The gap analysis process involves determining and documenting variances between business requirements and current capabilities.

Top 10 Retail Technologies for 2010

2010-06-14T07:30:00.001-04:00

Last month RIS posted an article listing the top 10 retail technology initiatives for 2010, based on the RIS/Gartner Retail Tech Trends Study. The top 10 trends identified are:

1. Forecasting and planning
2. Price and markdown optimization
3. Assortment planning
4. Product lifecycle management
5. New product or private label development
6. Allocation
7. Promotion management
8. Replenishment
9. Item management
10. Shelf and space planning

In addition they identified social media and M-commerce as technologies to monitor as they continue to mature.
The complete article can be found at:

http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=&type=Blog&mod=View+Topic&mid=67D6564029914AD3B204AD35D8F5F780&tier=7&id=F6B3B8A7E71042F08E3536D20229A87B

Pete Rudd
Impact 21 Group

Communicating a Promotion

2010-06-09T07:44:00.000-04:00

A question that often comes up in category management seminars and workshops is “What is a best practice for communicating promotion information?”

When you think about it, communicating promotion information is simply a microcosm for any and all communication between the category management function and store operations, price book, and other areas. The difference being a finite start and end date, specific SKUs involved, and limited signage, advertising, etc.

One of the best practices is to utilize a simple but effective checklist as shown below.

8+ weeks prior to promotion

Pricebook analyze and review promotions with Category Manager
Category Manager develop strategy plan for promotions with Supplier
Are coupons utilized? If so, contact graphics department
Promotional pricing approved by Category Manager
Promotional pricing plan is communicated in the monthly planner
Category Manager notifies Pricebook via supplier/item maintenance form

4+ weeks prior to promotion

Graphics team has notified stores of signage requirements via monthly planner
If it is a new supplier, Pricebook should forward supplier/item maintenance form to the Accounting Department for supplier setup
If it is a new product, Pricebook should set up in pricebook

1+ weeks prior to promotion

Pricebook verifies all pricing communications received match price changes in monthly planner
Pricebook creates pricing download transmission for stores
Ensure stores have received monthly planners and necessary signage

Two Days prior to promotion

Stores receive and accept price change transmission
Verify pricing and products match monthly planner. Report discrepancies to pricebook department

Day of promotion

Store test to ensure products scan correctly
Ensure all signage and promotional displays are in place

End of promotion

Ensure pricing is no longer scanning at promotional price
Remove all signage and displays from store

Remember, a tool doesn’t have to be fancy, complex or expensive to be effective!

If you have other practices that have worked well for you, we invite you to share them with the blog.

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant

Portal Technology – Education Development & Tracking

2010-06-08T10:59:00.000-04:00

When the CFO says jump we say “How High!” We recently had a breakthrough with one of our portal clients. They had been managing their processes on the portal and managing their process improvement team project work for the last eight years. Our CFO asked the question to his direct reports, “Have all the employees in the finance department been trained on what we of expect the new employees?” In other words, do we have finance required and departmental training for our new employees and do we track to ensure they have met the minimum requirement within the first year of employment? And oh by the way, have the existing employees been through the same training as well?

Nobody could answer the question definitively. That is when we got a call asking for assistance. We responded with, “Shouldn’t HR be handling this with their Learning Management System?” The answer was that their tool wasn’t flexible enough to track all of the different kinds of training that employees were to take. We then clearly understood the issue and knew that the finance portal would be able to resolve the issue.

We got managers to think of training courses as events. Events came in the following flavors; online classes, review of departmental processes, company guidelines, compliance rules, off site training classes, etc. By turning on user tracking in the portal we were able to assign training event requirements by fiscal quarter and track progress by employee by quarter. We also took the financial organization chart and built into the system management hierarchy. Management now could see down into their organization the status of training. The CFO now has the ability to review by direct departmental report the training goals and accomplishments of each of his managers.

CFO is pleased with the education development and tracking of his finance staff and has now set the tone at the top of the organization for compliance to training and process in the enterprise. Needless to say, managers are now reenergized at using the portal. Employees are happy as they now know what is required of them and where to get the training.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Winning at Store Management

2010-06-05T11:35:00.000-04:00

Your people represent you and your company to the customers that come through the door. Just how well are they doing at that? You want to have confidence that your employees are always doing an incredible job...not just when you are in the store.

Hiring the right people is crucial to your success.

You absolutely must have people who can help you get the desired results. They have to be able to make a meaningful, quantifiable contribution to the performance of your store.

To move up in the organization, a Store Manager has to get attention and recognition from top management. Great people will help to showcase your store’s capabilities while achieving your objectives. It’s a win-win situation all around.

If you are a Store Manager you need great people. It’s a fact. By following a few simple steps you’ll be on your way to having the best staff in the industry.

Hiring the Best Employees
• What to look for in a prospective employee before the interview – make a list of the key attributes you want each of your employees to have
• Preparation… the pre-interview stage – take the time to thoroughly read each application and note items that you want to discuss during the interview
• Interview Questions / Scenarios – have several in mind as you interview the prospective employee to understand how they would handle the job
• Acceptable Responses – before the interview define the answers that are acceptable to your questions
• The People You Already Employ are the Key – ask them to refer others they know that they would want to work with

But hiring and motivating GREAT PEOPLE is only part of your success.

You want to train them and make sure they know what is expected of them so that you have the comfort of knowing that all of your people are moving in the same direction; the comfort of knowing that your store is always in safe hands. You have a limited number of staff hours available to use. It’s up to you to use those hours in the most productive way possible.

Training the Best Employees
• Set up the Buddy System – assign a veteran employee to each new employee
• Standards and Expectations – start at the beginning with defining the expectations for each new employee
• Training Plan – create a specific training plan for each new employee
• Follow up – follow up each training event/situation afterwards to ensure training is complete

In addition to hiring top performers, training them well and preparing them for success, the task of managing your hours and the many changing priorities you have every day is incredibly important. Planning and managing your time will make a huge difference to the level of success you will achieve. That’s a skill that will earn you a lot of respect from your management team. Top management wants people who can look ahead with concrete plans for increasing their business. People who do this move up in the organization!

Managing Your Hours
• Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan – create a daily plan and follow through with that plan each day
• Personal Organizer/Date Book – use a tool to keep track of your time and commitments, and organize upcoming events
• Time Management - Top Time Wasters – be aware of things that can sidetrack your plan each day
• Managing the Schedule – schedule your employees at least a week or more in advance – give them a planning tool, too
• Long Range Planning – set goals and plans for next month, the next quarter, and the next year – performance objectives that need to be met, operating goals for the store, and personal and family goals

Chuck Young
Chief Information Officer
General Manager
Impact 21 Group, LLC

GAP Analysis- Another Issue Goes Unresolved!

2010-06-03T11:31:00.002-04:00

A Gap Analysis is the single most important collection of information about any company's new initiatives or strategies current execution of existing strategies or shedding light on potential problems within the organization, a GAP Analysis can provide great information. The GAP can also assist in determining how comfortable the team is with the company’s current model for going to market and business being lost as a result of weaknesses among organizational structure. In addition, it identifies if the organization is performing as it should be and then can identify what must be done in order to achieve the full potential of the organization. Bottom line is whether all involved are on the same page.

As I mentioned before, there are often many issues that go unresolved when a GAP Analysis is conducted. Well, what about the training gap that we often are confronted with in new initiatives? When a new initiative is launched, it can be taken for granted that the team is prepared and ready. But are they ready, or do we want them to be ready? Given any initiative, when led by the organization's own project manager, it is expected to be a success. However, more so is the initiative expected to produce benefits, streamlined processes and results. Leave out the training piece and this could spell disaster. Leave out monitoring for results and it can spell financial ruin- lost sales, profits or possible even resources.

A GAP Analysis can help the organization reach their potential identifying who is trainable, who isn’t, how much training they'll need and the kind of help from which each will benefit.

Don’t let training pass you by during your GAP Analysis.

Pete Barrett
Impact 21 Group, Principal Consultant

Funny Friday: You Can’t Believe It.

2010-05-28T07:30:00.001-04:00

When I Googled the phrase “You can’t believe it” the first response was to complete the phrase with “everything you read.” I thought that was perfect given this is a blog post and you are reading it. Here is the headline to the first article I found: “Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read.”
Now you, being an Impact 21 Group blog reader, are smarter than the average bear and probably reacted as I did with a “not me. I’m too smart to believe everything I read. Heck, I don’t believe most of what I read!” Regardless, you’ll find some interesting theories and experiments in the article at: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/why-you-cant-help-believing-everything-you-read.php

Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite for knowledge.

“Believing is not a two-stage process involving first understanding then believing. Instead understanding is believing, a fraction of a second after reading it, you believe it until some other critical faculty kicks in to change your mind. We really do want to believe, just like Agent Mulder.

Believe first, ask questions later.

Not only that, but their conclusions, and those of Spinoza, also explain other behaviours that people regularly display:

Correspondence bias: this is people's assumption that others' behaviour reflects their personality, when really it reflects the situation.

Truthfulness bias: people tend to assume that others are telling the truth, even when they are lying.

The persuasion effect: when people are distracted it increases the persuasiveness of a message.

Denial-innuendo effect: people tend to positively believe in things that are being categorically denied.

Hypothesis testing bias: when testing a theory, instead of trying to prove it wrong people tend to look for information that confirms it. This, of course, isn't very effective hypothesis testing!

Enjoy the read, remember to read everything critically, and don’t believe everything you read. Except for the I21G blog post, of course!

Believe me when I wish you a happy, safe, and fun-filled Memorial Day weekend and “Good Selling!”

Casey “Spooky” McKenzie

Learning & Development - Session Design

2010-05-25T10:25:00.001-04:00

In a past L&D post I discussed managing the energy of a session. Sounds simple enough, but it can be a challenge. Quite simply, if energy management in a session becomes a consideration at the time of the engagement - it is too late.

Managing the energy of a session begins during session design. I've been to too many conferences, meetings, sessions, etc where no attention was paid to the flow of the overall design. It becomes pretty obvious...how? People getting up to use the facilities...people nodding off...lack of creativity...the list goes on. So how can we address this early on?

During session design, it is critical to think about some basic human physiology. People can only retain a specific amount of information at a time. People can only maintain attention for specific amounts of time. We need to be aware of these limits, and work within them. For instance, it is important to schedule breaks at the right times. Seems obvious enough, but many session designers (and I use that term graciously) don't consider it. I've been to the session where the first break isn't until two hours in - wrong answer. Simple as it sounds, that first break must occur within the first 60-90 minutes, at the most. The alternative is having individuals get up and walk out; they'll come back after they have done their business, but you've shown them - up front - that you didn't consider their basic needs.

Another example: the afternoon lull. About one hour after lunch, around 1:30 or 2 PM - it hits. We've all seen it. It is a post-lunch brain break everyone takes. It is almost impossible NOT to tune out. Why not schedule (at the very least) a break at this time. Better yet, an exercise that involves movement is a results-driving, creativity driving answer.

The point is, consider the normal flow of human activity. Plan for it. Your participants will appreciate your effort.
Cary Paul, Partnering Consultant

Blogging from San Diego

2010-05-19T08:50:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in the blog post back in March, you should have signed up to attend the NACS Introduction to Category Management workshop here in San Diego that begins today, Wednesday May 19 and concludes tomorrow.

If you didn’t do that but still want to get started in category management before the next NACS’ sponsored workshop, concentrate your efforts in these areas.

1) Identify the top five categories that account for the majority of sales and gross profits and focus most of the effort and time there. The return will be greater than if spent on less important categories or if spread out over the entire store.

2) Select a trusted vendor to partner with you in developing category plans. This may or may not be the biggest vendor in a category. Consider the vendor’s track record for objectivity, dependability, category and consumer data, and analysis and planogramming resources.

3) Determine the primary strategy of each of these top categories.

Primary Strategies:
Traffic-builder
Objective:

Draws consumer traffic
Encourages high consumption
Increases volume

Profit-generator
Objective:

Produces significant profit dollars either through margin,volume, or both

Transaction-builder
Objective:

Generates transaction size
Builds incremental sales
Provides strong impulse sales potential

Assigning a primary strategy to each of the leading categories will simplify and focus decision-making and in store tactical execution in the areas of:

• Position: Where am I going to locate the product inside the store?
• Product: How is the product going to be managed?
• Presentation: How am I going to present/display it?

4) “Personalize” the implementation of these 3 Ps by illustrating for store associates the benefits their customers will experience when the 3 Ps are carried out with excellence.

Successful implementation requires the discipline to execute in the store in order to influence consumers’ buying decisions and encourage them to buy more and more frequently.

Next Step: get yourself to a NACS Category Management Session. We will conduct an Advanced Category Management session September 8-9 in Charlotte, NC. Find more detail here:

http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/Events/CategoryManagement/Advanced/Pages/default.aspx

In the meantime, get started!

Blogging from San Diego, I’m Casey McKenzie, Senior Partnering Consultant

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT: CHANGE

2010-05-17T10:16:00.001-04:00

I attended a presentation by Robert J. Marshak, PhD, titled Organization Development & Change: Views of the Past, Present & Future. Delivering potent messages in his very eloquent style, he offered that many professionals overlook the nuance between Organization Development and Change Management. Mr. Marshak’s presentation was timely, refreshing and thoughtful. Some of his conclusions hit home for me and other consultants in my group. He further defined each this way:

Change Management - Engineering organizations for economic gain
Organization Development - Facilitating human development for social and organizational gain

I find Change Management to be over used and the new buzz phrase for consultants replacing words like “leverage” and phrases like “best practices” and used by every consulting company with a webpage and hyperlink.

Engineering and re-engineering processes produce finite starting and finishing points. Basic change management is an event much like any implementation that starts and finishes. A frequent struggle is writing the sustainability plan and how to communicate it to senior leadership. Few great metrics exist to mete out effectiveness of short term or long term performance related to the change. Execution can be done quickly by whipping up some new processes, adding a few bodies here and subtracting a few there, printing a new org chart and abracadabra – change!

Organization development isn’t as catchy. OD is broader and more comprehensive though, and places more value on the humanistic approach versus the economic approach of change management. There is no finite beginning or ending. The focus is on developing individuals within the organization and defining the culture through executive-led “conversations” and “stories.” Mr. Marshak says “Organization development is not sustaining change, but sustaining people in change.”

OD is more important than ever. First, many predict the unemployment rate to remain high for years to come. Some say 8%+ is the new normal. Organizations that focus on developing people over process will motivate their teams and realize the productivity gains. Second, I compare social media and its impact on the workplace to the introduction of Microsoft to the workplace. This phenomenon will explode in the coming years. And social media is inherently humanistic. Organizations have a choice between ignoring social media and figuring out how to strategically integrate it within a holistic organization development plan.

Although Mr. Marshak’s presentation covered many other thoughtful topics, and even change in a much more scholarly fashion than I share here, I now have a better appreciation for the nuances of change.

Matt Pytosh
Principal Consultant
Impact 21 Group

GAP Analysis

2010-05-13T07:26:00.001-04:00

It is with some assumptions that without a GAP Analysis some issues may go unresolved. Whether it is an infrastructure or business alignment discovery, which are by the way two most often issues that are over looked, bringing all stakeholders together on common grounds with common goals can be the earliest beginnings of a strategic plan that companies should consider.

Pete Barrett

Impact 21 Group, Principal Consultant

Supply Chain Management

2010-05-10T15:30:00.001-04:00

If you order 1 time per week (every 7 days), do you really need 29 days of supply on hand?

Funny Friday: You can’t believe

2010-05-07T07:30:00.001-04:00

If sportswriters can be replaced by software, are blog writers safe?

April 19th, Bloomberg Business Week article headline: Are Sportswriters Really Necessary?

Narrative Science's software takes sports stats and spits out articles

Below are the opening lines of three stories written about a recent college baseball game. Two are from schools' sports information departments. The other was produced by software that takes box scores and spits out news articles. Which one was done by machine?

a) "The University of Michigan baseball team used a four-run fifth inning to salvage the final game in its three-game weekend series with Iowa, winning 7-5 on Saturday afternoon (April 24) at the Wilpon Baseball Complex, home of historic Ray Fisher Stadium."

b) "Michigan held off Iowa for a 7-5 win on Saturday. The Hawkeyes (16-21) were unable to overcome a four-run sixth inning deficit. The Hawkeyes clawed back in the eighth inning, putting up one run."

c) "The Iowa baseball team dropped the finale of a three-game series, 7-5, to Michigan Saturday afternoon. Despite the loss, Iowa won the series having picked up two wins in the twin bill at Ray Fisher Stadium Friday."

To find the answer, click on this link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177037188386.htm

And think about whether or not your job could be replaced with software?

Also from the same issue, I found this humorous for all you “tweeters” out there.

“Twitter is about to announce a new pay model. For 25 bucks a month, you never hear from Aston Kutcher again.” Comedian Dennis Leary.

To all our friends in Nashville, you are in our thoughts and prayers.

Casey McKenzie

Training

2010-05-05T07:30:00.001-04:00

We’ve been talking quite a bit, internally, about the use of video in training sessions. It is a tool we’ve used a number of times in facilitated sessions, with planning groups and the like. They are very useful for breaking up the pace of a session, driving home a key point, and providing participants yet a new perspective to look at the material.

The typical training session has a measurable pace set by the agenda and the material being conveyed. We’ve found that having a video in our hip pockets is useful both in structured, agenda-driven circumstances – and for use just when the energy in a room is low. It adds instant relief from the normal flow of the session – and gives people an opportunity to have fun and (gasp!) laugh.

Video is also great for driving home a key point. As a trainer, I could stand in front of a room and say the same thing 100 times…and wouldn’t have nearly the effect of having the same point conveyed through media combining audio and video. Add in humor and a contemporary topic – and your message has even that much more power.

And, as we all know, no two people learn the same way. There are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners. The more ways those learners can experience the material…from different perspectives…the better. Video is yet another, and a very effective way, for that to happen.

Cary Paul
Partnering Consultant

Data Warehouse / Business Intelligence - Myth or Magic?

2010-05-03T21:12:00.001-04:00

Without question, retailers today have moved from operating on instincts to operating on data. To achieve this, retailers have established KPIs and developed the infrastructure to support the KPIs at all levels. IT groups have developed DW infrastructure and BI tools to collect, analyze and distribute the data per the business need. The key IT initiatives in this are creation of a data warehouse, developed analytics, and delivery of reports on user’s choice of device.

While most BI reports are the result of analytics running on historical data, some retailers have developed real-time reporting infrastructures operating on principles of in-memory BI. In-memory BI is also used by business departments to analyze a large amount of transactional data to identify trends and conduct analytics at a very granular level. This is in contrast to summarized or aggregated data that is generally the first step in developing a DW / BI strategy for most organizations. The lower cost of memory has been a major factor in allowing in-memory solutions to be commercialized and gain momentum in the BI arena.

Most retailers are now focusing their BI efforts on developing management dashboards and scorecards that provide KPIs from store level all the way up to the corner office. To ensure that everyone is working off “one version of the truth”, retailers are focusing significant time on master data management. They are creating common metrics and business rules across the organization and ensuing that all reports containing this data are the same. This is probably the #1 area of concern for retailers – everyone goes to Monday morning meeting and has a different number for sales the previous week. With a focus on defining the metrics and data sources that DW / BI tools will access as a first step, retailers are gaining a significant competitive advantage through their DW / BI efforts.

Given the need for retailers to take information out of the hands of just “power users” or IT and make it available to everyone on the front line, new BI tools are emerging. “Casual user empowerment” is the new thinking among BI watchers. Since most of us still have difficulty translating a business question into facts and dimensions, guided search applications from leading BI vendors have come into play. These solutions allow casual users to start exploration with a search string. The BI application then presents the whole universe (existing reports and raw data) that fits the search string. Then, the user picks and chooses what they want or filters out unneeded and irrelevant information.

Who knows, before going into that Monday morning meeting, what if we just typed in “Sales and Gross Profits for Last Week” and all the information we were looking for was presented in every possible way to ensure we find what we’re looking for? Oh yeah, we’re talking about BI, not magic. Well, maybe they are becoming one in the same? Time will tell.

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Funny Friday: What if…

2010-04-30T20:54:00.000-04:00

What if…

...there were streets that drove for you? …there were individual rocket-packs that would make you fly? You know what I mean – all the what-ifs we’ve been dreaming (especially in the 50’s, it would seem) for all time.

What if…there was a blog space where we could have a good laugh over some zany ideas in the convenience store space? And…what if…just one or two of those ideas came true – now that would be lucrative, for me.

Pumps that say something important. I’ve heard enough about discount donuts and free coffee. How excited the taped voice is to see me. I’m outside freezing – give me something good! How about a Coldplay song, or even a “Books From the Pump” snippet of Tom Clancy. I’d probably stay for more gas.

Interesting bathroom keys. OK, I get it. You don’t want someone to steal any bathroom time. So there is the bathroom key…usually connected to, a piece of metal, or plastic. Give me something new. I know some IT people who connect the computer room key to an old mother board. Now that is clever.

Auto-price adjust. That’s right – the instant the gas price drops on the sign across the street, whamo! It drops as the pump I’m using.

Home gas delivery. I’m just sayin. Oh, and bring some jerky with, as well.

JIT checkout. If I’m a regular, have everything waiting for me at checkout. My hot coffee, my banana, my lottery ticket – all that.

Microphones that work. OK, this isn’t a stretch, from a technology standpoint. I’ve been to Broadway – I can hear what people are singing. Heck, I’ve been to Little Pond Community High School in Dontgothere, Arkansas – I can hear what they are singing. Somehow we can’t get good audio technology…or is more training needed? We can help with that!

Self cleaning bathrooms. Everyone wins here. No more jokes about the gas station bathrooms, no more eye rolling at that list of “last cleaned by”, and no more bathroom ballets avoiding the seat.

Those are just mine. What are yours? I’m sure we can supplant some of the above.

Tell me…What If…?

Cary Paul, I21G Partnering Consultant

Thinking Outside The (Convenience Store) Box

2010-04-28T07:31:00.000-04:00

As a c-store industry professional, you probably live, breath and eat convenience stores in addition to working in the industry. And I’m sure (because you’re reading this blog post) you try to keep up on the latest news and information about the channel. We are fortunate to have several excellent sources of information the form of the trade associations, magazines, websites, electronic newsletters, email alerts and RSS feeds.

And while you’re probably already feeling “information overload” I’m going to suggest you look at additional information but not from within the c-store channel. I’m referring specifically in this blog post about the supermarket channel but you could and should also consider mass and drug and even other forms such as bookstores and electronics retailers. Why?

To perform a bit of legal “shoplifting”, i.e. “stealing” ideas. While the c-store channel has had a fair share of innovative ideas, it is an undisputable fact we are not always on the leading edge and that’s fine. But we must be quick adopters of good ideas whenever and wherever we finds them and we must be creative adapters to tailor them to our specific channel and customer needs and wants.

It takes only a few minutes a day to scan headlines from the daily alerts you receive and most of it you will pass over and rightly so but if just once a week you find an idea that can increase your sales or gross profit a tenth of a percent, over a year’s time that’s real money!

Here are links to but two of many, many other channels daily alerts. I would like to hear from you about the ones you find most useful.

http://www.progressivegrocer.com/progressivegrocer/newsletters/email.jsp

http://www.perishablepundit.com/subscriptions.php

Casey McKenzie

Follow the Wallet

2010-04-26T21:05:00.001-04:00

I have been following closely the developments in the consumer payments space and its confluence with multi-channel retail initiatives. There is a lot of activity happening in startups, alternative payment players and retailers in being able to reach the consumer wallet in ways which frankly the world of retail and also that of payments has not traditionally been capable of.

Actually, let me correct that – not been traditionally inspired to do so.

My experiences with many of our customers and partners who play aggressively in the world of payments systems (underlying technology), acquiring and acceptance have shown a few interesting and logical emerging trends. For one, it is almost a given that current payments infrastructure which services consumer payments is not usually a best fit for what the real challenge on hand is. I am talking here, primarily around core payment processing systems and switching systems which do the bulk of transaction handling and management.

Traditional payment systems were built for speaking to banks and accepting bank sponsored payment products. Which forced a linkage to bank based financial accounts to be your primary source of funds, and then by default your wallet so to speak resided there. What we are seeing now is the influence of “lifestyle based” choices which a consumer is more amenable to adapt to and make changes to spending habits.

Lifestyle driven financial products are now becoming a core reason why the wallet of a consumer starts to get “thicker”. From General Purpose Reloadable cards to mobile wallets to Paypal and similar wallets – consumers are adopting far and widespread load and redemption mechanisms which make acceptance and processing transactions more challenging if not just difficult. But as we have seen so often, with every challenge comes an opportunity worth exploiting given the right environment. We are seeing just that with three complimentary key players in the payments ecosystem:

1. From a retailers perspective: the ability to accept these source of funds and making sense of the diverse transactions and still providing a positive retail experience at the Point of sale or service in stores, web, mobile and MOTO channels.

2. Wallet managers: (outside the typical banks and FIs) are the holder of consumer funds where consumers have an option of loading and storing funds for various lifestyle based choices – e.g. PayPal, OboPay etc. They have an obvious inherent advantage for allowing wider access to the funds in there captive wallets.

3. Payment processors and acquirers: the group which traditionally has been servicing merchants for payment processing.

Keeping aside the business case (which is fast emerging but a separate discussion by itself), the challenge and of course the opportunity as I see it, would be the need and urgency for the above 3 groups to innovate on their traditional payments and acquiring technology infrastructure to accommodate the upcoming change in consumer behavior. Research has shown that spending habits on a similar product category from a typical credit card transaction and that from a wallet residing somewhere else can be interestingly different. Hence, we are close to a threshold in consumer payments technology, where I believe time is ripe that all the above 3 players see value in innovating and providing the consumer the ability to transact somewhat differently then what he/she has been used to or rather allowed to. Huge benefits for all the above players, if this was to happen.

Hence, in my opinion, we are not far from the day when the consumer will be able to use his money from whatever source he desires and spends it wherever he desires through the medium of his choice – “pervasive commerce” as we call it at ISTS Worldwide.

We have seen this repeatedly, one customer after the other – how difficult it is for them to innovate on traditional payment rails and time is now to adapt and make the necessary changes which are not very difficult. Just follow the wallet and keep a clear eye on the consumer base and markets you serve. Easier said than done, but doable none-the-less. As Richard Bach has said, “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy, what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly”.
Mustafa Shehabi
Sr. VP Sales & Marketing
ISTS Worldwide, Inc.

Did you know . . . . . .?

2010-04-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

On June 22, 2009, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products effective June 22, 1010. The act bans companies from promoting products as lower-rick alternatives to traditional tobacco unless it is certified by the FDA. This requires that tobacco manufactures remove descriptions such as “Light”, “Ultra Light”, and “Mild”, from all brands of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products on or before June 22, 2010. Consequently, you will have to change UPC descriptions in your pricebook to match the manufacture’s descriptions.

http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/ProtectingKidsfromTobacco/RegsRestrictingSale/ucm204589.htm for additional information on the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Patti Safford
Impact 21 Group

The “$34 Billion Dollar Bet”

2010-04-22T15:48:00.001-04:00

When Warren Buffet made a bet this week, agreeing to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp for $34 Billion, he was placing a bet on the future of the economy and the railroads impact on that future. I would have made the same bet, if I had it, but, more certainly would have made even a larger bet that he was concerned about his company’s decision. Given that Buffet made past bets (investments) on railroads, this could be one of great timing. As analysts speculate, Buffet is “planting both feet” in an industry destined to grow with the bounce back of the economy” - if your business was in a position to make a similar “bet”, would you?

Are you looking at your business like Buffet? Analysts are saying he is “looking for investment that will reap rewards for many years into the future and not so worried about immediate gains”? At Impact 21 Group, we believe that both low hanging fruit and long term gains are important in the C-store industry. In an industry where the 2008 Top 100 C-Store companies have fewer than 70 stores, every dollar spent in your business, and our industry, is making the “Billion Dollar Bet”.

So where is this leading you ask? It is leading to a decision that you need to ask yourself every waking day that you choose to invest in your business. This is where a GAP Analysis begins- the painstaking first steps of your business making decisions on automation, marketing, or business solutions that will impact the future of your realization of immediate gains or reaping long term rewards. It is only then, after a Gap Analysis, that you have identified the current state of your business and compared it with where you want to be in the future. Only after the GAP process should you begin to make decisions where your business strategy will lead you. Will it be making thousands of dollars of investments into a solution or process that turns out not “right” for you or will it be an investment that sets up the future direction of your company’s growth.

If you get thrilled with Internet searching, try searching “gap analysis”. Find the definition you like. There are hundreds to choose – a simple business one from Wiki to one of many collegiate Ivy League definitions. In short, it comes down to a few simple basic objectives:

· Opportunities
· Options
· Timeline
· Support

Think about how Buffet went about his decision- there is an opportunity, there are options, the timing is right and he has support. If all the conditions were not right, then Buffet may have walked away. Looking back at the last year, our industry has gone through some tough times and we believe that we’ll go through some more difficult and trying times- may not be tomorrow after you read this blog, may not be this year (only double nickel days left). My bet is that it’s coming. Whether it is more decisions to be made on PCI compliancy, Point of Sale (POS) or Back Office Systems (BOS), the fact is there will be more decisions.

Pete Barrett

Business Alignment & Change Management

2010-04-21T15:42:00.001-04:00

Many companies do a pretty good job of aligning their organization when working on a specific issue and/or implementing a project. They generally put together a cross functional team that works together to get the job done. While this is light years ahead of simply assigning it to an individual or task force, we have found that business processes and technologies are so intertwined throughout all aspects of our business that it's virtually impossible to do something in one area that doesn't have an impact on another. Therefore, this project by project approach to problem solving or implementation has become a thing of the past.

In addition, it has always been known that change management is one of the most important aspects in the success of any project or program. In fact, SAP has been quoted as saying that "Leadership and Change Management are two of the most important elements in the success of any project. " Source: Benchmarking and Best Practices: SAP Value Realization: Achieving Business Value From Your IT Investments, AUG/SAP: May 2006. While this is true, most companies don't know how to incorporate change management models or strategies into their business models.

We recommend that our clients think about the possibility of creating a Business Alignment Model and Teams that are designed to focus on business processes and the technologies that enable them on an on-going basis. That way, anything new that the organization needs to consider can be incorporated into an already existing model to manage competing priorities, assess change and provide a consistent approach to all projects.

The key components of any Business Alignment and Change Management Model include:
Sponsorship & Stakeholder Engagement
Change Readiness Assessment
Communication
Content Management
Learning and Development
Applying Metrics
Accountability

By combining all these components with an on-going and consistent business alignment team approach, organizations will be in a much better position to manage and leverage new technologies that are impacting how they do business today and in the future.

Lesley Saitta
CEO

Learning and Development- A New Attitude

2010-04-20T15:37:00.006-04:00

Learning & Development. We all talk about it. It's part of just about every company or organizational culture. But how effective is it? Does it add value to your personnel? Does your L&D program target the right audience...with messages that stick...with results that support your mission...?

Chances are, you've attended - or (gasp) - hosted one of those training sessions. You know the one, where participants can hardly keep their eyes open. Ever ask yourself 'what's really going on there?' The material is important - lets assume for the sake of our analysis that it is - so there is certainly a motivation for participants to pay attention. So why are they tuning out?

Or, and I've seen this countless times, how about the multi-day session - the one where everyone is amped up and ready to change the world. You've been to that one too, maybe multiple times. What happens, almost every time, within about two weeks? Like. It. Never. Happened.

We'll be exploring the topic of L&D, extensively. We'll discuss how to wake up training sessions, how to make your messages stickier, how to keep the fire alive long after the session ends. All that and more - so please stay tuned. And, as always, we welcome and encourage your comments!!!

Cary Paul
Partnering Consultant

Teamwork Divides the Task and Multiplies the Success

2010-04-19T15:54:00.001-04:00

Although every project requires great teamwork, IT projects seem to require an even higher standard of teamwork to be successful. Most IT projects begin with the CEO uttering, “I have a challenge for you” but what this really means is the project has impossible deadlines, no budget, limited resources and. . . oh by the way. . . .this is now today’s top priority (there will be another top priority later but for now this is it). If it is not a request for a new project it might be a request for a “minor change” that is only considered minor to the person requesting the change.

Of course the first thing to managing any good project is to form a “Team”. Teams are great because you get to bring in the best experts from each department to help you in the successful completion of the “priority of the day” project given to you by the CEO. Couple of things that I have noticed about “Teams” in the workplace-first of all there is no “I” in Team, there is also no “Us”, “We”, or “Hey-don’t worry I got your back”.

Here is a list of other things I’ve noticed about teams:
When the department head says he (or she) is giving you their best person, you are getting the one that went to the bathroom when the decision was made.

Attendance tends to decline as the workload increases

The choice of lunch entrees dictates participation

The average human cannot go 60 minutes without looking at their Blackberry 60 times

5 year olds have better attention spans

“I can meet that date” means in reality that I can do this when you get my boss to tell me it’s a priority in his world

So when the boss tells you that being put in charge of a project and being given a team of experts to work with is a major feather in your corporate cap, remember it really mean-you work more hours, make less pay, and in the end it’s your career on the line!

The phases of a technology project:
Enthusiasm
Disillusionment
Panic
Search for the guilty
Punishment of the innocent
Praise and honors for the non-participants
More next time!

Patti Safford, I21G Consultant

Funny Friday: You Can't Believe

2010-04-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

Do you Tweet? Do you ever think everything you ever Tweeted can be viewed by anyone on the planet?

It soon could be. You may not believe this (and it may not be all that funny but we need to be aware) but this headline tops an article posted by the BBC.

“The Library of Congress is to archive every single public tweet ever made.”

(Read more at this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8621297.stm )

From the article: In a Library of Congress blogpost entitled "How Tweet It Is", Matt Raymond underlined the reason why these tweets deserved a home alongside better known historic documents like the Declaration of Independence.

"I'm no PhD, but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data."

Alongside the Library of Congress announcement, Google revealed how it is going to make the Twitter archive searchable for users.

The search giant unveiled a replay feature that lets users search tweets posted at any given point in time right down to the minute.

My advice: Think b4 you Tweet!

Have a great weekend.

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant

Item Level Inventory Management: The Next New Killer App?

2010-04-15T16:14:00.001-04:00

The ability to effectively manage inventory at item level has evolved from a “best practice” into a "life or death" situation in these times when every transaction is of the utmost importance. In a recession, excellence in inventory management becomes the mark of the successful retailer, and inventory mismanagement in any capacity may severely hurt a retailer’s performance.

We are all aware that an inventory surplus leads to underutilized working capital and loss of profit, and that inventory stock outs create customer dissatisfaction and the loss of revenue and margin. As well, how does over/understocked inventory affect merchandising/product placement? What is the immediate sales impact associated with misplaced goods? Will the next replenishment order be accurate or not? These are the challenges of inventory management on the retail sales floor. And while much discussion has occurred on the topic of inventory management during the past 20 years, most of the investments have targeted warehouses, distribution centers and stock rooms – making the retail sales floor the next frontier in the quest for excellence in inventory management.

In many ways, when compared to the larger supply chain, the retail sales floor remains significantly more chaotic from an inventory management perspective. Until retailers gain better control of inventory on the retail floor, they will be missing critical opportunities to reduce costs, enhance customer yield, and generate cash. Applying more order to retail floor inventory management will require at least item-level management, and in some cases, item-level intelligence. Until retailers take advantage of the ability to track inventory on an item-level basis, the retail sales floor will remain shrouded in questions.

What are some of the benefits of implementing item level inventory?

Controlling inventory in the store optimizes the delicate balance between in-stock inventory levels and out-of-stock conditions and reduces working capital deployed.

In order to maintain accurate inventory item levels, store personnel will be trained to scan all individual item SKUs at the POS. For example, when the cashier is presented with a 20 oz. Pepsi and a 20 oz. Mountain Dew during a 2 for $2 promotion, the cashier may be tempted to scan the Pepsi twice instead of scanning each product separately. Doing this will cause sales data from the POS to be misrepresented and cause the replenishment order to be incorrect.

By keeping an accurate balance of inventory at the store by knowing what products are selling, what items are necessary to stock and what is overstocked, the backroom stock that tends to pile up is drastically reduced and much easier to manage.

Thousands of dollars are spent on equipping stores with POS systems and implementing scanning and training personnel. Item level inventory management systems use the transaction sales data that is already being captured to create an accurate replenishment order.

Chuck Young

Portal Technology

2010-04-14T16:17:00.001-04:00

This is a platform in which companies assemble a wide range of content and services useful to a targeted group of people. Most often the content in these portals is originated by the organization itself, and some is acquired from third-party sources.

Companies use portals as knowledge or information repositories for the organization. Most of this information cannot be obtained from the financial systems. It is information useful to employees getting work done.

Let’s take a look at how one might leverage a portal.

During the 3rd and 4th quarter many companies are finalizing their strategic plan and next year’s budget. This becomes a series of meetings with accompanying documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. We have observed clients keeping these works in progress on their desktop or laptop computers. One blue screen of death and they have to start over. Missing the deadline can be a career ending decision if you get my drift. We have also seen elaborate server configurations with tight security for managing planning docs. So much so that employees don’t have access to the drive for the information they need. “Can someone let me into the F drive?” And then there is SharePoint. A wonderful portal based solution for managing documents that everyone thinks is cool. Unfortunately the installs we have seen have turned out the same dumpster diving result for users as with servers. The tremendous flexibility and simplicity of the tool gets in the way of intelligent informational design.

Any of this sound familiar? The interesting thing is that this ritual called strategic planning becomes a wonderful exercise to get to the annual budget. When the plan is complete the thousands of documents created for the company sit idle until the company hits is first revision of the budget based on unforeseen economic factors and we have to pull out the documents again. Who has final version of the spreadsheet we submitted with the executive committee comments? Oh yeah, did I mention there are still people with hard copies in their drawer?

What if we took a different approach and leveraged portals to manage the strategic planning process and use existing portal functionality to manage changes and track individual’s actions as related to strategic goals, objectives, and initiative? A one-stop-shop for all to participate in achieving what we planned to do for year. This would give us the ability to monitor the success of programs and slow spending on certain projects if the economy proves unfavorable and even stop projects that no longer make sense.

We'll be exploring the topic of Portal Technology, extensively. We'll discuss how portals can be used to organize and deliver process based information along with critical applications for the large and small enterprise. So please stay tuned. And, as always, we welcome and encourage your comments!!!

Rick Kiehle, Partnering Consultant

Retail Loyalty Programs

2010-04-13T07:30:00.003-04:00

Loyalty can be defined as the tendency of a customer to choose one business or product over another for a particular need. Satisfaction does not equal loyalty. A customer can be extremely satisfied but still not loyal. Loyalty becomes evident by the choices made and actions taken by customers. It is - getting customers to choose or visit more. Loyalty is the result of well-managed customer retention and engagement programs.

Loyalty has become a catch-all term for the end result of many business approaches. Striving to retain every customer isn't a good idea for any business. The solution rests in knowing the value of each customer and then focusing loyalty efforts on those customers who are the most valuable. Loyalty programs communicate with customers, giving them encouragement to remain active and choosing to do business with a company.

Customer data and models used in a loyalty program can tell which customers are most likely to respond and become loyal. The data will indicate who to promote to, and how to create customers who are loyal to you longer.

A well-designed loyalty program can answer some of basic customer retention FAQs such as:

How likely a customer is to respond to an offer and what that offer should be to maximize response while minimizing discounts or incentives?
When best customers are about to stop buying, and what to do about it?
What the future value of a customer will be relative to other customers?

Loyalty is not simply customer retention or customer service or marketing. It is a systematic business approach to build long lasting and mutually beneficial customer relationships. It integrates data, technology, analysis and marketing and communications processes across all customer touch-points.

But most of the retail loyalty programs that exist today are limited to points or discounts, thus most of the retail loyalty programs have become a commodity, as a result they have drifted away from their original purpose of "promoting loyalty for a retail brand". How can retail chains strike an optimum balance between revenues/ profitability versus retaining the loyalty of existing customers?

As per ISTS, a loyalty program is tactically-driven approach based on customer behavior. A loyalty program should not be just limited to 'points', 'miles' or 'discounts', it should be designed to convert every 'touch-point' with a customer into a complete communication opportunity. Loyalty program should also serve as a platform to meet dynamic retail marketing strategies for the business organization by segmenting customer database, create personalized and targeted marketing messages for specific customer segments, and deliver them via various channels (SMS, Email, Web, Charge-slip etc in real time).

A well-designed loyalty program for a business can help to determine, which customers it is most interested in retaining by appropriate data capture, behavior analysis and technology involvement. Ability to capture and leverage information/ data for providing personalized customer experience seamlessly and consistently across various channels/customer touch-points is a key to gain competitive advantage.
Madhur Mittal
Senior Product Manager
ISTS Worldwide Inc.

If It Were Only A Game

2010-04-12T16:22:00.000-04:00

Have you ever played “The Beer Game”? It is a supply chain management game developed by professors at MIT. What a frustrating, but hilarious exercise this was for me as I played the game a few years ago. Like real life, the players are manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers who are each trying to manage supply and demand from their own perspective. And like real life, it is a wild ride that proves great costs for each of these players whether inventory levels are over OR short.

Today, many technologies are involved in moving a product from supplier to end customers as each player of the supply chain tries to manage demand. The primary objective of a supply chain management solution is to fulfill customer demands through the most efficient use of data by forecasting future demand. The ability to manage the required days of supply means each player can significantly free up the working capital tied up in inventory on hand. If days of supply are on target, it also removes the risk for out-of-stocks which will in turn, improve sales.

Carrying cost of inventory for all players is likely the biggest cost incurred for the supply chain. So we have to get this forecasting right. Are you considering systems and automated processes to forecast demand or to provide computer assisted ordering and receiving? This is a hot topic for Impact 21 Group so we will continue to explore ways to reduce working capital in the coming weeks. Let us know what you are up to…

And remember that if the supply chain were a game, we could stop here. We would not have to talk about all the other costs associated with distribution of products, theft and damaged goods. But it’s not a game guys, it is real. So stay tuned and blog with us as we continue down this path and close the loop on other areas of supply chain management.

Lisa Stewart

Funny Friday – What If…?

2010-04-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

What if…there were more interesting bathroom keys attachments? I know, right? Maybe you’ve thought this before. Many service station bathrooms require keys. Many of those keys have odd things attached to them. Some examples I found in an exhaustive (17 seconds) search I completed:

Top of 5 gallon bucket
Tire rim
Hammer
Toilet seat
Giant spoon
A rubber ducky
Teddy bear

What is the point of these attachments? So they don’t get lost? So you aren’t tempted to steal them? Did that list really include a Rubber Ducky?

Whatever the reason, they are clearly important, so this week’s What If…is this: What If There Were More Interesting Bathroom Keys? Any ideas? Would love to hear them. Here is my initial list:

Tub of Antibacterial Soap to counteract the sea of germs from bathroom key attachments
An Electronic Reader, aka Kindle, iPad, nook, etc
A harmonica (well, ok, forget that)
View Master for stereoscopic sightseeing
GPS

There is actually an entire blog dedicated to this art. I purposely didn’t go there before developing my ideas, as to not hamper any free thinking. You’ll find the blog at www.bathroomkey.blogspot.com

Have a funny weekend!
Cary Paul, Partnering Consultant

Portal Technology – RESET

2010-04-06T07:30:00.002-04:00

In talking with many thought leaders recently, I found many struggle with the proper word that describes how people should be thinking about the economic state of the world. My response has been simple. RESET. You can point fingers and blame administrations all you want. Down deep we all have collectively have contributed to the state of the economy. To move through these times it is important to reset our expectations of sales and expenses. And move on…

From a technical point of view we have challenged our clients to review the expense of managing a data center, maintaining web sites, and developing home grown business portals. By demonstrating the process of how strategic partnering works, our clients have significantly reduced expenses. One example is partnering with suppliers and giving them access to the partnering portals. This affords them seamless integration to the supply chain greater forecasting capabilities so they are able to right size their overhead and stabilize prices. The customer wins in the end getting the product they want when they want it and not being disappointed or having to wait or surprised by price. I encourage everyone to do a reset in the way they do business leveraging information to bring us together and move our great nation forward to a new economy.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

What has your POS done for you lately?

2010-04-05T07:30:00.001-04:00

In today’s integrated world, is your POS system integrated to the Back Office computer in the store? To other devices inside the store? To your corporate office?

Is it performing as you expect it to, providing data that is being turned into information with which you are making better, faster, fact-based decisions?

If not, you should have NACStech in your travel plans for the first week of May, in New Orleans, LA. Over 100 companies will be exhibiting and more than 80 list POS Systems, POS Software/Hardware, Back Office Software/Hardware or other advanced POS/BOS applications as part of the products and services they offer.

NACStech provides access to information, technology resources and connections and is an opportunity for you to make the right connections with business partners, get in-depth explanation about products and services and realize the value that IT delivers to your brand. NACStech is about looking forward at how technology will provide results for your business.

Exciting General Sessions
* New this year! Convenience Store News presents two Leadership Tech Awards at the Opening General Session Featuring Don McMillan

* Closing General Session Features Kevin Mitnick, “the world’s most famous former hacker”

Focused Content
* 25 retailer-developed workshops in 5 different tracks

* Learn about technology advances like virtualization, data security, viral marketing, foodservice technology, Microsoft SharePoint, PCI compliance and much more.

Trendspotting
* Five new exhibiting categories have just been added:

Biometrics
Wireless
Mobile applications
Knowledge management
Sustainable systems

* More than 100 companies will participate.

The Idea Network
* Join hundreds of industry retailers at our networking events and activities.

I hope to see you there!

Chuck Young
CIO

Funny Friday: What If?

2010-04-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

What if...
There were pumps that say something important...?

Here is why you should care: because standing next to a gas pump, waiting, is one of the 7 Things We Wait For in life. They are, in no particular order:

For the light to turn green
To fall asleep
In line, for our turn (amusement park, deli counter, bank)
At railroad crossings (though this one has decreased greatly in the past quarter century)
For water to boil
For commercials to end (like the railroad, this one has almost become obsolete with television time shifting)
and...at a gas pump until our tank is full

Most of these 7 Things We Wait For have natural or human-produced Things to Do While Waiting, including: listening to music, thinking about our day, or making small talk. Waiting for water to boil is also pretty old-school, since most people now get through life multitasking...putting dishes away, checking lists, prepping a meal - all things done in the kitchen while waiting for the boil.

Unfortunately for us all, there has been no advancement in Things to Do While Waiting - for our tank to fill. Even the great-wait-reducer: the cell phone, can not be used while at the gas pump. So where are we to turn?

Many stations make use of some simple audio technology that allows them to "speak" to their captured audience. But, really. I don't need to hear any more about the discount donuts and free coffee. Give me something that keeps me motivated to stay for more gas, or come back here the next time.

"Have you heard the latest Books from the Pump? This month it's Tom Clancy!"
"Absolutely! I'm heading over to Gas n' Stuff right now for Episode 3...oh, and to get some more gas."

"Did you hear the latest song from Coldplay?"
"I did, interestingly enough, at the gas station on 3rd Street."
"Oh yeah, they've always got the latest jams playing there."

Too much to hope for? Maybe, but I'm holding out for a more interesting gas pumping experience. And just sayin, what if!?!!?

Cary Paul, Principal Consultant

GAP ANALYSIS: Selection Process

2010-04-01T15:40:00.001-04:00

If a Gap Analysis is the single most important collection of information about any company's new retail initiatives or strategies, then Store Selection must certainly be second.

The Store Selection process is a key element in the success of any GAP Analysis project, Pilot Implementation, or IT enhancement testing to a company. The ability to look at the business and identify the stores that present the greatest diversity and direction for how a company executes is vital to identify the path to greater success. Identifying a group of stores offering a range of diversity and opportunity for direction and change will present the best opportunity for measurable results. There are many parameters to be evaluated during and prior to the final selection of stores and these parameters should be agreed upon by all cross functional teams.

Selection of the stores utilizing these basic parameters will result in a broad overview of how well current processes are implemented and executed; how previous projects have been sustained by tracking measurable benchmarks and goals. The selection of stores must be agreed upon by the cross-functional teams as to eliminate bias or skewed results. Identified gaps found during the gap analysis can then be addressed and monitored allowing for the business to capture the desired financial or process improvements defined in the initial findings. The ultimate success will be sustainability of the gap findings.

Pete Barrett

Business Alignment & Change Management

2010-03-31T16:42:00.002-04:00

It sounds so simple. Implement. We are prone to consider most of the technical issues. We seldom change policies or procedures, even when the new process is in conflict. And if we did, I doubt very seriously we would tell many people about the changes. Why are we like that? I think I figured it out this year. Humans have tunnel vision. We see the urgency in immediate issues, forego longer term strategies and know that all the people we interrupt will somehow find a work around. It is our human nature to work it out and that train of thought might very well be getting in the way.

Did you ever stop to think about the real impact on the organization when we move forward with and new business program, technology or area of automation? Here it is in a nutshell. If you do not prepare your team for the anticipated outcome,

“People will continue to conduct business the way they have always conducted business.”

Most of the old processes will stay intact. For example, if the system does not appear to provide information, they will recreate it in spreadsheets, often getting information from someone else’s spreadsheet instead of running a report off of a system.

I want you to ask yourself three question:

Did you latest marketing program rise to the occasion?
Did you get a return on your investment with your technology implementations…I mean, did cash actually hit the bank?
Did the last area of automation really reduce or eliminate manual processes or make someone’s job easier?

If you answered no to any or all of these questions, do these three things:

1. Pull a meeting of all your key players
2. Identify the broken areas and build a plan for the repair job
3. Communicate, and I mean keep it simple
    a. Who
    b. What
    c. When
    d. Where
    e. Why

Lisa Stewart

Learning & Development: Session Design

2010-03-30T16:20:00.002-04:00

Managing the energy of a session...Sounds simple enough, but it can be a challenge. Quite simply, if energy management in a session becomes a consideration at the time of the engagement - it is too late.

Managing the energy of a session begins during session design. I've been to too many conferences, meetings, sessions, etc where no attention was paid to the flow of the overall design. It becomes pretty obvious...how? People getting up to use the facilities...people nodding off...lack of creativity...the list goes on. So how can we address this early on?

During session design, it is critical to think about some basic human physiology. People can only retain a specific amount of information at a time. People can only maintain attention for specific amounts of time. We need to be aware of these limits, and work within them. For instance, it is important to schedule breaks at the right times. Seems obvious enough, but many session designers (and I use that term graciously) don't consider it. I've been to the session where the first break isn't until two hours in - wrong answer. Simple as it sounds, that first break must occur within the first 60-90 minutes, at the most. The alternative is having individuals get up and walk out; they'll come back after they have done their business, but you've shown them - up front - that you didn't consider their basic needs.

Another example: the afternoon lull. About one hour after lunch, around 1:30 or 2 PM - it hits. We've all seen it. It is a post-lunch brain break everyone takes. It is almost impossible NOT to tune out. Why not schedule (at the very least) a break at this time. Better yet, an exercise that involves movement is a results-driving, creativity driving answer.

The point is, consider the normal flow of human activity. Plan for it. Your participants will appreciate your effort.

Cary Paul, Partnering Consultant

What Price Loyalty? A Review of Colloquy’s 2010 Retail Loyalty Index

2010-03-29T11:13:00.001-04:00

Colloquy recently released its annual Retail Loyalty Index in March, 2010 and Retailers are still buzzing. It appears the impact of the recession has dramatically changed the loyalty landscape and PRICE has taken over as “King” in terms of driving loyalty. In 2008/2009, customer service was the most important factor in driving loyalty with consumers and other factors such as store environment and product selection were often mentioned. Bottom line, in 2008, customers believed that low price drove FREQUENCY, but other factors inspired brand loyalty.

Not so in 2010 as evidenced by the results of Colloquy’s index. There apparently has been a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, including spending, saving and shopping habits. Some believe this behavior shift may be with us for the next decade, while others believe that the improved sales activity in late 2009/early 2010 may drive change more quickly.

In addition to providing retailer rankings for 2010, Colloquy also provided some possible solutions for retailers as follows:

1. Get wise about where you can win

2. Adapt our value proposition to deliver more value

3. Collect the customer data you need to succeed

4. Get intimate with customer insights

The 2010 Colloquy Retail Loyalty Index provides detailed data from a survey of 3,500 US consumers and 3,500 Canadian consumers and can be found at the link below.

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Colloquy 2010 Retail Loyalty Index

Top Ten Trends in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

2010-03-24T16:17:00.001-04:00

CBC Interactive Network, in conjunction with SAP, conducted a webinar on March 25, 2010 to discuss the Top Ten Trends and Forecasts in 2010 for CRM. These include the following:

1. Align Marketing processes with Technology
2. Drive Customer Demand in New Markets
3. Increase Marketing ROI through Efficiency
4. Grow Long-Term Profitable Sales Relationships
5. Improve Brand Perception and Business Image
6. Build Customer Loyalty and Appreciation
7. Cut Costs With Integration and Automation
8. Increase Revenue from New Sources
9. Improve Versatility for Customer Interaction
10. Track Opportunities for Smart Decision Making

To hear the entire broadcast or download slides, please visit the following link:
http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/thankyou.aspx?&promo=843&tag=nl.e843.em&tag=nl.e843&docid=1588197&view=1588197&load=1&load=1&authId=pPo7tXxRJj6U33SSvarEGo9o6hHWpqE/YGemexg8+nU59GDsrOYapK0y8iGDrolO

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Why is US not migrating to EMV?

2010-03-23T09:51:00.001-04:00

US Payments/ Cards Industry is largely unregulated and the ecosystem consists of many stakeholders. Also factors such as ever-evolving consumer preference, increasingly vocal and active merchant and ISO/ Processor Groups, increased instances of organized fraud, pressure on networks/ ISO/Processors to reduce processing and interchange fees are forcing the industry to reinvent it and look at new/ improved ways of doing things.

Migration to the EMV standard from legacy magnetic stripe cards is currently a large project within the global banking and credit card industry, and a key driver for this migration is the increased transaction and data security offered by the technology. Since the EMV standard offers increased protection from fraud, in recent years credit card issuers worldwide have begun to transfer fraud liability to merchants using non-EMV compatible payment terminals, further spurring the adoption of the EMV standard. The US has always been on frontiers of technology and innovation but it will be interesting to explore why the US is not so forward in migrating to EMV compared to other countries.

The motivation/decision to implement EMV in the US needs more consensus between the stakeholders than has generally been the case elsewhere. Unlike other countries, the US lacks a body with sufficient influence or authority to agree, decide and "mandate" technology issues like EMV- for example within China, the key players in regulating the introduction of EMV smart card technology are the People's Bank of China (the Central Bank) and the Chinese UnionPay organization.

The US has massive numbers of credit/ debit cards issued and credit/ debit card terminals, EMV migration in the US will be a very expensive exercise. From the cost of the replacement card itself, the replacement and upgrading of POS and credit/ debit card terminals, ATMs and software systems will cost billions of dollars. The question of who will bear this cost - consumers (directly, or indirectly through higher bank fees) or banks absorbing costs as an investment - remains to be answered.

A further impediment is the considerable time and resources it will require to introduce EMV knowledge to bank employees, cashiers and card users, and to provide adequate technical support and troubleshooting during the migration phase. In general, concerns in relation to cost, risk and technology have slowed the migration to the EMV standard in the US.

US Merchants, Banks/ Issuers and Acquirers/ Processors are not fully convinced of the value of EMV migration to their bottom-line. While these institutions do understand that EMV will improve security at POS but they also know that these benefits are not likely to meet the huge investments of POS hardware, software, training and migration costs.

With the advent of contactless payments and NFC, EMV seems to be the logical first step to make contactless/ NFC payments more secure. EMV adoption in the USA can be driven only by a collaborative effort from all stakeholders.

Other countries have already started to implement EMV and hence we can expect credit/ debit card fraud to migrate to the USA - neighbors Canada and Mexico have already started implementing EMV (in Canada EMV adoption has started with a mandate of partial adoption on Interac by end of 2012 and full by end of 2015).

Also given the wide scale deployment of EMV globally, it is necessary (ultimately) for US issued cards to be EMV compliant if one is to maintain international interoperability while moving to a higher level of security.

In light of above mentioned facts, it seems necessary for the US to migrate to EMV within next 2-3 years and not wait any further.

Madhur Mittal
Senior Product Manager
ISTS Worldwide Inc.

Category Management: Quick Start Guide

2010-03-17T16:03:00.002-04:00

So you want to implement Category Management but:
A) You haven’t attended a NACS training workshop
B) You want to get started now
C) But you don’t know where to start
D) And resources are limited.

Consider this your “quick start” guide.

Identify the top five categories that account for the majority of sales and gross profits and focus most of the effort and time there. The return will be greater than if spent on less important categories or if spread out over the entire store.

Determine the primary strategy of each of these top categories.

Primary Strategy: Objectives

Traffic-builder: Draws consumer traffic; Encourages high consumption; Increases volume

Profit-generator: Produces significant profit dollars either through volume, margin, or both

Transaction-builder: Increases transaction size; Builds incremental sales; Provides strong impulse sales potential

Assigning a primary strategy to each of the leading categories will simplify and focus decision-making and in store tactical execution in the areas of:
• Position: Where am I going to locate the product inside the store?
• Product: How is the product going to be managed?
• Presentation: How am I going to present/display it?

“Personalize” the implementation of these 3 Ps by illustrating for store associates the benefits their customers will experience when the 3 Ps are carried out with excellence.

Successful implementation requires the discipline to execute in the store in order to influence consumers’ buying decisions and encourage them to buy more and more frequently.

Next Step: Attend the NACS Introduction to Category Management Session in San Diego, May 19-20. For more information visit: http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/Events/CategoryManagement/Pages/default.aspx

Casey McKenzie, Senior Partnering Consultant

Portal Technology – How do you keep people accountable and focused in a sea of email?

2010-03-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

It seems so simple yet so hard to implement. In an age of email, instant message, chatting, and twittering we are watering down our focused approach to business. Sure all of these communication tools help for instant access and bringing people together and collaborate. However, unless you are able to capture the information, insights, and organize accountability actions with proper timing it could take much longer for you to win a bid, close a sale, complete a project, or satisfy customers. In fact without a centralized approach, your team will often finger point when the ball has been dropped.

May I be so bold to suggest a simple process approach to accountability that is enabled with a simple technology that can hold action owner’s accountable, track activities due and complete, and also consolidate data in one location for making informed decisions (no more dumpster diving for data). Through the use of a collaborative portal, organizational leaders will then be able to quickly assimilate information from all perspectives and give proper guidance. Having a process for focusing your team and information improves for quality decision making and also reduces redundant interaction. Virtual meetings occur in the portal and what was once employees swimming in a sea of email and instant messages the transformation takes place and all information is neatly organized in the context of the process, sale, or project. Don’t get me wrong email is still a great tool and if your portal is properly set up it will send your team automated alerts via email so that deadlines are not lost and forgotten. Your focus should be on winning more bids, increasing sales, completing projects on time, and improving your business processes, all to lower your operating costs and improve the business. Keeping your team accountable is an excellent use of a portal.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Store Managers – The Key to Winning the Retail Game

2010-03-15T16:36:00.001-04:00

As the convenience retail business evolves, your store manager could be the difference between growing and losing sales, customers and profits.

Store managers bridge the crucial gap between company management and the front-line employees. If these individuals are not properly trained or lack the industry savvy needed to handle some of the complex issues facing convenience store managers today, experts say the outcome could be disastrous.

Traditionally, the convenience store manager wore many hats. That person was often responsible for handling everything from product selection and advertising to marketing and merchandising. Today, chain stores have shifted many of these responsibilities to the corporate office. This allows store managers to concentrate on their primary responsibilities: overseeing day to-day operations and maximizing retail sales.

Executing the Business Plan
Store managers can help keep retailers on track toward building new sales and increasing profits. But if they are not attentive to each store's needs, it will reflect at the cash register.

The role of the store manager is not to come up with the programs, but to ensure there is proper execution of the business plan. If the store manager is not focused on the entire store, employees are going to notice and focus only on what's being stressed by the store manager. If nothing is stressed, then the whole store is in trouble.

A store manager's role is similar to the role of a sports head coach. Their job is to basically understand the game inside and out and when they see things happening on the field, they can make adjustments and get into the role of coaching. The store manager has to understand what his customers' needs and expectations are and then go out and show employees how he wants them to service them.

Professional Development
Developing the skills of a store manager is not only important to the individual, but to the direction of the company. Experts say it is paramount for retailers to train and identify key core competencies--such as product knowledge, customer and employee relations, and selling skills--that stores managers must master in order to succeed.

The best manager knows how to coach, delegate authority, conduct meetings, is a good listener, ask employees for feedback and set clear-cut goals for the empl;oyees. They have a passion for their customers, their products and their employees.

Following Company Policy
It is easy to blame managers for various failures within the store because they are stuck in the middle between upper management and employees. But if a company lacks a clearly defined corporate policy for store managers to follow, it may leave them with no basis for making store-level decisions.

Store managers should be empowered to make store-level decisions within certain guidelines or corporate policy. Otherwise, store managers may make decisions they think are best, but may not be the way the company wants to go.

The retailer has to give the store manager the proper support and tools to be successful. The store manager needs to understand clearly what the goals, vision and mission the organization is trying to achieve and the guidelines they need to stay within.

Judging Job Performance
Often times the bottom line is the bottom line when it comes to judging the performance of store managers. But while financial performance is important, experts say there are other key areas to consider as well, such as employee productivity, inventory shrinkage, customer service and satisfaction.

The ultimate way to measure performance is sales, but you do have to take into account other factors that affect a successful retail operation. For example, if they engage in behavior that can increase sales, such as keeping merchandise in front of people and following up with customers, ultimately they will come out as winners.

Computer Song To be sung with the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies

2010-03-12T16:32:00.002-05:00

How many of you can remember the tune for the theme song from the 1960s show “The Beverly Hillibilies? Have fun with this fun tune I found on the internet – author unknown.

Computer Song To be sung with the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies:

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Ted, A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed. But then one day he was talking to a recruiter who said, "they'll pay big bucks if ya work on a computer".. UNIX, that is....Windows XP....Workstations...C++...VB

Well, the first thing ya know ol' Ted's an engineer. The kinfolk said "Ted, move away from here". They said "Arizona is the place you oughta be" so he bought some donuts and he moved to Ahwatukee... Intel, that is....dry heat... no amusement parks.....

On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube. Fed him lots of donuts and sat him at a tube. They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!" OT, that is ...unpaid...mandatory.....

The weeks rolled by and things were looking bad. Schedules started slipping and some managers were mad. They called another meeting and decided on a fix. the answer's very simple..."we'll work him sixty-six!" Tired, that is.. stressed out.. no social life....

Months turned into years and his hair was turning gray. Ted worked very hard while his life just slipped away Waiting to retire when he turned 64, instead he got a call and escorted out the door. Laid off, that is...de-briefed...unemployed.

Now the moral of the story is, do what you are told, companies will use you and discard you when you're old. So gather up your friends and start your own firm, Beat the competition, watch old bosses squirm. Millionaires that is.....Bill Gates...Steve Jobs... Ya'll come back now, ya hear.

There! Now get back to work!

Patti Safford

Business Alignment – Competing Priorities

2010-03-10T14:08:00.002-05:00

Quick! What is the most valuable project you should be spending your time on? Does your company have a list of top priorities? Is this list shared between departments and beyond to the whole organization – Is the same vision shared for what's truly important?

Often a few projects turn into many with demands that overlap and often conflict. New expectations and deadlines are set with projects falling thru the cracks. Tension mounts among team members creating anxiety and stress which affects concentration and communication.

Most companies find they have multiple, competing priorities. The following steps are helpful in identifying and resolving these conflicts:

• Make a list of priorities for the organization
• Prioritize the projects on the list based on cost, benefit, resources and time required
• For each priority list the actions involved and establish a regular meeting schedule to move the process along

Patti Safford

2010 - What a difference a Senator makes!

2010-03-08T20:28:00.001-05:00

Most retailers had expectations that the year 2010 would bring dramatic changes to their business. New health care reform was high on that list and many retailers have been trying to figure out how these changes would affect their business. Everyone has been preparing for credit card reform that would certainly benefit consumers, but might also negatively impact retailers. C-Store owners continue to be concerned with their ability to get credit and capital for growth. Oh, and the major brands have been slowly announcing loyalty programs and other initiatives that have brought additional uncertainty and change. Of course, the economy continues to bring challenges in terms of consumer confidence and spending and predictions are that this will continue until 2012 or 2013. So, how has all this changed the retail landscape in 2010?

The simple answer is that it's changed everything AND changed nothing at all. Retailers continue to buy and sell stores, new stores continue to be built as other stores are closed down, credit card reform is alive and well, with little improvement for retailers, and health care reform has been postponed indefinitely, due to changes in the senate. Margins continue at 2009 levels and retailers continue to look for new ways to grow their business.

Loyalty, social media, mobile apps and payments have all come to the forefront and no one really knows the long-term impact or ROI on these new ways to attract new customers to our brands. The good news is that retailres are asking the questions and many are beginning to look for new, innovative marketing strategies and technologies. Other channels of trade (grocery, drug, McDonalds, etc. continue to challenge "convenience" and new partnerships/coalition programs are surfacing (i.e., Kroger/Shell). While retailers know they should be doing something, many retailers don't have a clue what that is.

So, while many questions have been answered since the uncertainty in late 2009, many questions remain. There is a lot hanging in the balance, but retailers must continue to move forward and execute their strategies in light of the "new reality" we call 2010.

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Funny Friday: You Can’t Believe...These Quotes!

2010-03-05T07:30:00.001-05:00

What if this weren't a hypothetical question?

It’s Friday! Time for Funny Friday: You Can’t Believe
You can’t believe some of these quotes!

"I had gone searching for the truth, and found facts instead. I hate that."
--Anonymous

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso

"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."
--Steve Wozniak

"To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
To the plumber, any liquid in the glass is potential income."
(With thanks to John Pettit and Ed O'Connell)

We've been working on the basics because, basically, we've been having trouble with the basics.
--Bob Ojeda, baseball pitcher

"The other teams could make trouble for us if they win."
--Yogi Berra, baseball catcher and manager

"Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win."
-- Doug Collins, basketball commentator

"The only reason we're 7-0 is because we've won all seven of our games."
--David Garcia

"We have only one person to blame, and that's each other."
--Barry Beck, New York Ranger, on who started a brawl.

"Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century. Politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon."
--Sir Humphrey Appleby

Hope you survived until Friday afternoon. Have a great weekend. If you get bored, check out more silly quotes at http://www.goodquotes.com/

TGIF,

Casey McKenzie

Virtual Currency

2010-03-02T07:00:00.001-05:00

We discussed various aspects of Consumer Loyalty in the last posting. As discussed, consumers are demanding quick ways to accumulate and redeem their points, and hence enjoy gratification quickly.

To this end, there are some emerging trends in the market place. For years, many Asian grocery stores in US have been offering "food coupon", generally of $1 value for every $10 of purchase. One can use these "food coupons" in lieu of cash at the stores' food mart.

The idea is to offer the consumer a way to reward that can actually generate more business for the store as a whole. A patron who does not utilize their coupons right away has an incentive to return to the store and perhaps use these coupons while shopping for more groceries. Sometimes, patrons will consume the food purchased using the coupons and hence will remain in the store longer and sample other products. Many will eventually buy these products too. The idea is simple and yet very effective in generating repeat business. And in use is a "food coupon" that is one form of virtual currency!

Other more sophisticated examples are allowing for purchases using the points accumulated by the patron. Now, for years businesses have sent catalogues to the patrons with selected goods that one can use to redeem the points. While this is a great way to turn accumulated points into tangible goods, the method lacks the "at once" gratification that most consumers seek today. Almost always, shopping via catalogue is a planned event for most consumers, regardless of the method of payment - cash or points. And of course, there are ways to convert actual currency into points if one does not have enough points in balance.

The emerging trend in the marketplace is about allowing points based purchases at the point of sale itself for the retailers. "Will that be Cash, Credit or Points?" You are likely to hear this from the checkout clerk at your neighborhood stores very soon. Pilots of such payment methods are now in place and more robust implementation of such programs are coming soon.

Gazing at the crystal ball, one can visualize that virtual currency will soon compete with actual currency in many stores. And there may be some competing virtual currencies in play soon. It is likely that two or three community points program will become common and most business will allow patrons to accumulate and redeem points from one of these community programs.

Chandan Mukherjee
Vice President - Retail Payment Applications
ISTS Worldwide Inc.

NACSTech 2010 Is Right Around The Corner!

2010-02-25T16:34:00.001-05:00

NACSTech 2009 PCI Workshop (www.nacsonline.com)

Whether you are considering implementing a new technology solution, or just kicking tires, NACSTech is a great opportunity to gather information on many solutions quickly and easily. BUT, it doesn’t hurt to do a little planning and preparation before you go. As you may well know, time seems to fly by during these shows and many times we are heading out feeling that we didn’t see half of what we wanted to. Here are a couple of suggestions before you head to New Orleans:

1. Identify solutions and providers you want to visit.

2. Contact them and schedule time to either visit them in their booth or meet away from the show floor.

3. Prepare a list of specific questions you need answered or features and functions you want to see. (This is especially helpful if you are splitting up the activity with other team members)

4. Plan to network with retailers that may provide additional insights.

5. Plan time between visits to “Walk the Floor”. You never know what may catch your eye.

6. Don’t forget to identify and plan on attending workshops that are relevant to your needs.

With a little bit of planning you can get the most out of NACSTech 2010. Please feel free to share any other planning tips you may have used.

See you in New Orleans!

Pete Rudd

Speed to Shelf

2010-02-24T07:30:00.001-05:00

A constant refrain from c-store suppliers is how slowly, compared to other retail channels, the c-store industry usually is when it comes to getting new products onto store shelves. Added to the fact quantified in the C-SCAPE study a few years back that we are the most expensive channel to serve (mainly due to lower volume per outlet which means lower quantities per drop and more “windshield” time between drops) and, as an industry, we are at a competitive disadvantage.

In an excellent article by Barbara Grondin Francella appearing on CSNEWS.com, http://www.csnews.com/csn/cat_management/confections/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004055760
the challenges and affects of this tardiness in the candy category are highlighted along with some examples of retailers and supply partners doing something about it.

It would be worth your time to check out the article. It’s a “quick” read! Afterward, you may want to discuss it with your candy manufacturer and wholesaler account representatives.

Casey McKenzie

Senior Partnering Consultant

Portal Technology – Closing the Books

2010-02-23T07:30:00.001-05:00

The larger your enterprise grows the more controls you will need to have in place for your month and year end close process. I have observed many an accounting manager put together very detailed spreadsheets and pass them around the organization to bring order to the month end close process. Don’t roll your eyes back in your head. This is a necessary and important process in any business. It gives us the “actual” information we need to move the company forward and make informed decisions.

The reason many accounting managers fail with the spreadsheet approach is simple. Most of the knowledge workers using the spreadsheets have created their own custom copy. We have seen clients institute daily close coordination calls and email blasts trying to wrestle control into this monthly task. This process can get ugly especially when companies have many non-integrated systems. Most managers would tell us they have close plan not really a process.

Using a portal can ensure adherence to the plan or process. Mapping the close process and sequencing the activities, timing and the people responsible can successfully reduce redundant steps. When interdependent steps are coordinated and alerts are sent out from the portal, the workflow gets smoother and more in control. The time to close shortens. Issues that get in the way of smooth workflow stick out and accounting managers have to opportunity to meet with the close team to permanently resolve the issues. The result from that meeting is the portal close process gets modified for the subsequent month and we begin to improve more rapidly. Reopening a past period becomes non-existent and auditing becomes easier and is believable.

Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Well, you will have to manage the initial change with the close team. They will want to resist moving out of their comfort zone and give up using their highly customized spreadsheets. If you use them to help define the new process they will be more open to using the new portal based process. Once they embrace the change and see the results you won’t be able to get them to go back to the old way of closing the books.

Many hands (coordinated) make little work.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Twenty Questions

2010-02-22T16:06:00.001-05:00

Last time I blogged, I wrote about Winning at Store Management, and one of the keys is Hiring the Best Employees. Part of the hiring process is interviewing each prospective employee, and using the same group of questions allows you to compare results and make an informed decision about which candidate might fit best among the applicants.

So, with apologies to the Mutual Broadcasting System, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Questions, here are the questions I often used in interviewing prospects.

1. So, tell me a little about yourself.
2. Why are you looking (or why did you leave your last job)?
3. Tell me what you know about this company.
4. Why do you want to work here at ABC Company?
5. What relevant experience do you have?
6. Have you done anything to further your experience?
7. Where else have you applied?
8. If your previous co-workers were here, what would they say about you?
9. How are you when you’re working under pressure?
10. What motivates you to do a good job?
11. What’s your greatest strength?
12. What’s your biggest weakness?
13. Are you good at working in a team?
14. Tell me a suggestion you have made that was implemented.
15. Has anything ever irritated you about people you've worked with?
16. Is there anyone you just could not work with?
17. Tell me about any issues you’ve had with a previous boss.
18. So, explain why I should hire you.
19. Let’s talk about wages. What are you looking for?
20. Finally, do you have any questions to ask me?

Chuck Young
CIO
Impact 21 Group, LLC

Teamwork Humor

2010-02-19T16:09:00.001-05:00

Team Leader: To improve the quality of our meetings we have put a special monitoring device at the doorway!
Associate: To check for what?
Team Leader: “Hidden Agendas”

Team Leader: We just finished our first team meeting and it was GREAT! What a transformation, we went from a bunch of individuals with nothing in common to a TEAM! A unified, cohesive group with one timeline and one plan of action.
Associate: What’s that?
Team Leader: To have Chinese takeout for lunch!

Business Alignment & Change Management

2010-02-17T07:30:00.001-05:00

Okay, I am a math junkie. And I love spreadsheets. And formulas. And headers that perfectly define a column. And color coded cells to call attention to a great outcome. So why do I bring this up when my topic for the day is Business Alignment & Change Management? Because I want you to understand that your company will not need most of the spreadsheets you are passing around if your technologies are fully automated and reporting out on business data as designed. It is a novel concept, but it continues to be easier said than done, so I will get to my point...

One of the greatest issues with managing our business today is that we have added so many technologies that we don’t know where one stops and the other begins. An even greater issue occurs when we will pay $25,000 for the technology and can’t bring ourselves to pay the additional $50,000 in technical consulting and training required to fully understand how to leverage the technologies to actually automate processes and reporting.

Yes, it could cost you two times the cost of a new technology to do it right. And this technical support and training is the critical first step in managing change for your company. Remember, you cannot have business alignment without change management.

Lisa Stewart

You Can't Believe: What Some People Say

2010-02-12T07:30:00.021-05:00

From time to time we all mangle out words. Using the wrong word is called a malapropism. According to the Cultural Dictionary, a malapropism [(mal-uh-prop-iz-uhm)] is “A humorous confusion of words that sound vaguely similar, as in ‘We have just ended our physical year” instead of “We have just ended our fiscal year.’”

Yogi Berra (if you’re old enough to remember him) was probably the king of malapropisms as well as other just funny statements.

Our previous president, George W. Bush was also quite “good” at them.
Here are a few others to consider:

"It is beyond my apprehension."
-Danny Ozark, baseball team manager

"Listen to the blabbing brook."
-Norm Crosby

"This is unparalyzed in the state's history."
-Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House

"We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile."
-George W. Bush

"The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder."
-Richard Daley, former Chicago mayor

"He was a man of great statue."
-Thomas Menino, Boston mayor

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
-Dan Quayle, Vice President

"Well, that was a cliff-dweller."
-Wes Westrum, about a close baseball game

"It's got lots of installation."
Mike Smith, describing his new coat

Feel free to share any that you have heard (or may have uttered yourself!).
TGIF!

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant
Impact 21 Group

Online Business Leverages Technology to Enhance Retail Customer Loyalty

2010-02-11T14:39:00.002-05:00

MobileCoupons(TM) Launches Free Mobile Coupon Platform for Retailers
Last update: 2/10/2010

Self-serve website allows restaurants and retailers to create mobile coupons in under 5 minutes

CINCINNATI, Feb 10, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- MobileCoupons.com launched a first of its kind, online coupon creator that makes it easy for retailers and restaurants to create and distribute mobile and digital coupon offers. In less than 5 minutes merchants can create and publish coupons through a simple user interface. Once approved, the offers are available to consumers everywhere through downloadable iPhone and Android apps, the mobile web, and wired Internet - coupons are redeemed by showing the coupon on your phone. The product is free to both merchants and consumers.

MobileCoupons.com includes built-in analytics so merchants can track and change their coupons at any time. This means that coupon offers can show real time results and campaigns can be optimized immediately. In addition, coupons can be created for short time frames to fill slow demand time periods or as a special promotion.

MobileCoupons are now offered by well-known chains such as Arby's, AAMCO Transmission and Little Caesars as well as independent restaurants like Tommy Doyle's in Boston. According to the Yankee Group, Mobile coupons are projected to grow 10x next year and to continue triple digit growth in 2011 and 2012. As retailers rush to take advantage of this trend, MobileCoupons.com is working with a number of large national chains to integrate MobileCoupons.com directly into their POS systems. MobileCoupons.com parent company experience in the barcode/scanner and mobile web industries makes them an ideal partner for solving retailer operational issues.

MobileCoupons have social networking built-in and can be shared on Twitter and Facebook with just a click of a button. All offers are also optimized for web search engines, increasing the online visibility of both brands and their coupons. In most cases merchant listings and coupons are already near the top of search results.

"A pizza restaurant in Houston Texas recently posted a creative deal on mobilecoupons.com whereby a consumer just shows the coupon on their phone and 10% of the bill is donated to Haiti Relief," said Rob Deubell, President of MobileCoupons.com. "Consumers in Houston tweeted the Haiti Relief coupon via the website, sharing it with their friends and family." Offers can also be printed from a desktop computer, sent to phone via text messaging, or searched and clipped from the mobile web, iPhone or android app. MobileCoupons.com reaches all consumers - even those without a smartphone or web-enabled phone.

Mobile Coupons offer a number of advantages for consumers; they don't have to find, cut, save and remember to carry coupons; MobileCoupons.com gives consumers anytime, anywhere access. According to a recent study by the Yankee Group, 87% of consumers are interested in receiving coupons through their phone. Unlike other mobile coupon services, all of the coupons on MobileCoupons.com are created directly by merchants, so there is a 100% redemption success rate.

Matt Pytosh

Technology Sourcing – It’s Not Just About The Technology!!

2010-02-04T13:12:00.002-05:00

Back in November I talked about the main steps in sourcing a new technology solution being:

1. Define the requirements (don’t forget to prioritize)

2. Conduct the search (RFI / RFP process)

3. Select a supplier (consider a pilot)

4. Finalize the deal

Today I want to remind you that successful selection and implementation of a new automation system is not just about the technology. You must include People and Processes in your overall considerations. While it sounds like this is stating the obvious, people and processes tend to take a back seat as we get caught up in the bells and whistles of new technology which can lead to some challenging implementations.

To get in front of these challenges:
• Get all groups that will be affected by this new system involved in the selection. This will allow people to express their concerns and have them addressed early in the process, and get everyone aligned.

• Identify processes that will be changed up front so there are no surprises down the road. This will also help define new roles or changes in existing roles needed to successfully implement the new solution.

• Identify training requirements. How will you bring the team up to speed on the new application? Make sure you are taking advantage of new features and functions.

Yes, there will be times when you are upgrading technology to replace obsolete systems with minimal impact on existing activities, but in most cases, you are looking for process improvements to justify the cost of new technology. With that in mind, address the impact on people and processes early in the Technology Sourcing project and avoid the surprises and “gotchas” down the road during implementation.

Pete Rudd
Impact 21 Group

WHAT IS CONVENIENCE ANYWAY?

2010-02-03T07:30:00.002-05:00

For the past decade it seems, we have been reading and hearing that the supermarkets, drug stores and even mass merchandisers are stealing the convenience store channel’s customers. At last check, there are more c-stores today than a decade ago. So how do we explain this seeming dichotomy?

(And just as an aside; recent headlines on the latest store count in the industry provide a great example of why we need to be “critical” consumers of information and “look under the hood” when digesting data. One headline said: US Store Count Dips; the other said US Store Count: Stable. Same number of convenience stores, same change from previous year, very different perspectives. It’s like the age old question: Is the glass half empty or half full? The best response to that I ever heard was “it depends on whether you’re pouring or drinking!)

We all know the steps other retail channels have taken over the past years to become more convenient: adding fueling stations, moving “grab and go” items to the front, stocking “on the go” package sizes, and installing self-checkout scanning stations. And yet, the c-store channel has added outlets and sales have not fallen off the table. Why is that?

Let’s review the definition of convenience.

con•ven•ience (kən-vēn'yəns)
–noun

1. The quality of being suitable to one's comfort, purposes, or needs: the convenience of living near shops, schools, and libraries.

2. Personal comfort or advantage: services that promote the customer's convenience.

3. Something that increases comfort or saves work: household conveniences such as a washing machine, an electric can opener, and disposable diapers.

4. A suitable or agreeable time: Fill out the form at your earliest convenience.

5. Chiefly British A lavatory.

–adjective

6. easy to obtain, use, or reach; made for convenience: convenience utensils that can be discarded after use.

I would submit it is still more convenient to be able to fuel my vehicle and leave it parked there while I walk less than 50 feet to the store and in less than five minutes pick up 3 or 4 items I want, pay for them, then get back in my vehicle and drive away in another few minutes.

A basic fundamental of a “convenience store” is not that there are certain items placed in a convenient location within a large building or that I can stop at the far corner of the huge parking lot to gas up my ride or that the big box contains everything and anything I might ever want or need to purchase but rather it is that the entire operation is built around and for convenience; i.e., less distance from fuel or parking spot to store; less distance to cover in the store; better sight lines around the store; focused assortment of the most popular items (in stock!) and last but certainly not least we must never underestimate the value of truly personal service engendered by the familiarity between customer and customer service representative.

We have all seen this happen, have we not? Customer walks in the door and is greeted by name. As customer approaches check out, CSR places customer’s favorite brand of tobacco product on counter and informs customer of savings opportunity, CSR completes transaction while inquiring about customer’s day, job, family.

I have yet to walk into the nationally known supermarket chain my family shops at weekly (and has for over 15 years) and be greeted by name or have my favorite products waiting at the checkout, have you?

This is not to say there is no threat. Personally, when purchasing a limited number of items in a supermarket or mass merchandiser, I love self-checkouts. But at the same time we must not lose sight of the fact that our channel of trade has built-in advantages when it comes to customer convenience and IF we focus on those, train for those, and execute against those, we cannot be “out-convenienced.”

What do you think? Please share your thoughts and perspectives with the blog.

Casey McKenzie

Senior Partnering Consultant

Portal Technology – The Answer Is In The Clouds.

2010-02-02T14:44:00.001-05:00

Business technology leaders find themselves in something of a cloud computing deluge, showered by vendor marketing, new services, and even CEO questions about their "cloud strategy." Much of the exuberance centers on the kind of computing-by-the-hour service that many providers sell but most enterprises are only starting to ponder.

Amid the lofty aspirations, few have noticed just how powerful and grounded software as a service (SaaS) has become. The impact that SaaS will have on IT organizations is profound, and as business technology leaders, we need to ensure that our companies are ready for it.

While SaaS shifts software deployment and maintenance burdens to the service provider, freeing up resources for other projects, IT is at the mercy of the provider for availability, data security, regulatory compliance, and other key issues. Outages will halt business, and poor response times will hamper productivity. SaaS apps aren't just a nice-to-have. Three-fourths of companies using SaaS consider application services extremely or critically important to their organizations, according to an InformationWeek Analytics survey of 281 business technologists, including 131 who now use SaaS. About one-third describe their SaaS apps as mission critical.

Why is SaaS on such a roll? Surprisingly, the No. 1 reason is speed to implementation. As companies come out of the recession, with pent-up demand for new capability and often smaller IT staffs, this factor could become even more important. Speed is followed by capital expense savings, cited by 28% of survey respondents, and operational expense savings, cited by 25%.

SaaS has moved far beyond sales force automation and CRM. Human resources, Web presence, e-mail, service desk, collaboration, financial, and backup apps all are used by a fourth or more of SaaS customers. Our existing client base is using SaaS from invoice, billing, and time sheets to sales pipeline management to e-mail, they don't own a single server or software license.

Some of the main reasons our clients turn to SaaS are: quick setup and reduced capital costs. But another benefit, which will be increasingly powerful, is employee demand for mobility. SaaS will force IT organizations to make more apps securely accessible outside their corporate environment, be it remote offices, on the road, via a smartphone, or from a home PC. The demand for remote access may outpace IT's ability to deliver apps on a variety of platforms. For browser-based SaaS apps, mobile access is the name of the game.

All my life my mom and dad told me to get my head out of the clouds…I think not…the answer may very well be in the clouds…it's all how you look at them.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

Winning at Store Management

2010-02-01T15:13:00.000-05:00

Your people represent you and your company to the customers that come through the door. Just how well are they doing at that? You want to have confidence that your employees are always doing an incredible job...not just when you are in the store.

Hiring the right people is crucial to your success.

You absolutely must have people who can help you get the desired results. They have to be able to make a meaningful, quantifiable contribution to the performance of your store.

To move up in the organization, a Store Manager has to get attention and recognition from top management. Great people will help to showcase your store’s capabilities while achieving your objectives. It’s a win-win situation all around.

If you are a Store Manager you need great people. It’s a fact. By following a few simple steps you’ll be on your way to having the best staff in the industry.

Hiring the Best Employees

• What to look for in a prospective employee before the interview – make a list of the key attributes you want each of your employees to have
• Preparation… the pre-interview stage – take the time to thoroughly read each application and note items that you want to discuss during the interview
• Interview Questions / Scenarios – have several in mind as you interview the prospective employee to understand how they would handle the job
• Acceptable Responses – before the interview define the answers that are acceptable to your questions
• The People You Already Employ are the Key – ask them to refer others they know that they would want to work with

But hiring and motivating GREAT PEOPLE is only part of your success.

You want to train them and make sure they know what is expected of them so that you have the comfort of knowing that all of your people are moving in the same direction; the comfort of knowing that your store is always in safe hands. You have a limited number of staff hours available to use. It’s up to you to use those hours in the most productive way possible.

Training the Best Employees

• Set up the Buddy System – assign a veteran employee to each new employee
• Standards and Expectations – start at the beginning with defining the expectations for each new employee
• Training Plan – create a specific training plan for each new employee
• Follow up – follow up each training event/situation afterwards to ensure training is complete

In addition to hiring top performers, training them well and preparing them for success, the task of managing your hours and the many changing priorities you have every day is incredibly important. Planning and managing your time will make a huge difference to the level of success you will achieve. That’s a skill that will earn you a lot of respect from your management team. Top management wants people who can look ahead with concrete plans for increasing their business. People who do this move up in the organization!

Managing Your Hours

• Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan – create a daily plan and follow through with that plan each day
• Personal Organizer/Date Book – use a tool to keep track of your time and commitments, and organize upcoming events
• Time Management - Top Time Wasters – be aware of things that can sidetrack your plan each day
• Managing the Schedule – schedule your employees at least a week or more in advance – give them a planning tool, too
• Long Range Planning – set goals and plans for next month, the next quarter, and the next year – performance objectives that need to be met, operating goals for the store, and personal and family goals

Chuck Young

Chief Information Officer
General Manager
Impact 21 Group, LLC

Funny Friday: Murphy's Laws

2010-01-29T16:59:00.000-05:00

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, a fifth way will promptly develop
Every solution breeds new problems
A failure will not appear until a final inspection has been passed
There is always an easier way to do it
No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right
When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been correct in the first place
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission
The first 90% of a project takes 10% of the time, and the last 10% takes the other 90%

GAP Analysis- Another Issue Goes Unresolved!

2010-01-28T07:30:00.003-05:00

A Gap Analysis is the single most important collection of information about any company's new initiatives or strategies current execution of existing strategies or shedding light on potential problems within the organization, a GAP Analysis can provide great information. The GAP can also assist in determining how comfortable the team is with the company’s current model for going to market and business being lost as a result of weaknesses among organizational structure. In addition, it identifies if the organization is performing as it should be and then can identify what must be done in order to achieve the full potential of the organization. Bottom line is whether all involved are on the same page.

As I talked last time, there are often many issues that go unresolved when a GAP Analysis is conducted. Well, what about the training gap that we often are confronted with in new initiatives? When a new initiative is launched, it can be taken for granted that the team is prepared and ready. But are they ready, or do we want them to be ready? Given any initiative, when led by the organization's own project manager, it is expected to be a success. However, more so is the initiative expected to produce benefits, streamlined processes and results. Leave out the training piece and this could spell disaster. Leave out monitoring for results and it can spell financial ruin- lost sales, profits or possible even resources.

A GAP Analysis can help the organization reach their potential identifying who is trainable, who isn’t, how much training they'll need and the kind of help from which each will benefit.

Don’t let training pass you by during your GAP Analysis.

Pete Barrett
Impact 21 Group, Principal Consultant

L&D: Voice in the Room

2010-01-26T22:50:00.001-05:00

Surely some people don't need encouragement to speak in a session. There are, however, many training and session participants that are hesitant to speak. It is important to realize and do something about that.

We talk about a concept called Getting Your Voice in the Room. It is as simple as it sounds. If each participant is given the chance, early on in a session, to simply speak - that goes a long way towards encouraging participation.

The simple solution is kicking off with an icebreaker designed to allow all participants to speak. Doesn't have to be a complex icebreaker. Or a cheesy one. Just something that allows everyone to speak: something they hope to get out of the session, their ideal vacation, or - whatever.

That simple act, simply allowing each person to use their voice - to get their voice in the room - empowers each and every participant to speak during the session. Nothing magic about it, just hearing how their voice fits into the room.

Cary Paul, Partnering Consultant

It's All In The Numbers, Or Is It?

2010-01-25T22:25:00.001-05:00

Despite recent reports that the c-store industry's store count has fallen .2% over the past year to 144,541 stores, the industry continues to hold it's own when compared to other retail channels and restaurants. While this is the second straight year of store count decline, the numbers are easily attributable to volatile gasoline prices and high interchange fees and the inability for retailers with less than solid finanical footing to survive. Even though industry experts are saying that single store operators have been closing shop, the % of c-stores that are operated by a single owner have increased again to over 62.3%. So, while 334 c-stores closed in 2009, 452 more c-stores were opened by single store operators. Optimism and confidence in this industry remains high for those wanting to run their own business!

There is, however, great uncertainty in the c-store industry (as well as the economy as a whole) as consumers continue to be conservative on spending, unemployement numbers remain high and health care and credit card reform remain in the hands of Congress. Despite a relatively stable fuel market, consumers are still driving less and fuel gallons are expected to be down again in 2010 for our industry. Cigarettes, confectionary and packaged beverages are also expected to be down according to CSN's Outlook 2010, which puts further pressure on c-store sales and margins.

Cigarettes volume alone could be down as much as 5.6%; however, the c-store industry is expected to have a 70% share of the Cigarette business by 2018. So, while many retailers would like to replace their cigarette sales with new revenue streams, most retailers understand the need to continue to optimize this category as much as possible to remain viable. OTP and Energy Shots continue to offer the largest % of growth for inside the store, while water, carbonated beverages and gum/mints are all on the decline. Foodservice still offers tremendous opportunities for c-store retailers, but continues to have execution challenges that many c-stores have been unable to overcome. It appears that fewer retailers will be offering foodservice, however those doing it will be doing it better!

Fortunately, the c-store industry began closing down unprofitable locations several years ago, before the economy turned, so continuing to look for these opportunities is only natural. Are major oil companies divesting of their sites? Yes. Are single store opertors opening more stores than are closing? Yes. Are there opportunities for c-store retailers to optimize their assets and continue to grow their business? Absolutely. Uncertainty will generally result in one of two reactions. Do nothing and hope things get better or do something and make things get better. The c-store inudstry has continually proven that it falls in the later category, as evidenced by the fact that in 1979 there were only 57,700 c-stores in the US! So, even though store count is down a little in 2009, don't count us out yet!

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Funny Friday: You Can't Believe

2010-01-22T07:30:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! The new year is a time for new beginnings, new commitments; a chance to start fresh in some areas of our lives and jobs. It’s a great time to take a critical look at how we merchandise the store.

Now this time of year in many parts of the U.S. the weather has a negative impact on keeping the floor clean and off shelf displays looking their best, but still we try.

So what makes for a “good” display? We talked about this in an earlier blog but here is a refresh:

Presentation: “How am I going to present/display it?"

Product arrangement in shelves
Communicated price: effective, visible, aligned to the exhibited product
POP Material: prices, borders, danglers
Signage
To fill up and to accommodate according to plan-o-gram
Take out material on its expiration date
Accommodate new material according to standards
Identify price changes and modify them

Certainly we can learn from seeing how others do something well, but since this is Funny Friday: You Can’t Believe, here are some examples of displays that come up a little short in these areas. Hopefully, you don’t recognize your store!

Soda and antifreeze as adjacent products? Ugh!

Evidence of a success or poor execution?

Information overload? Why make hard for the customer to pay you?

Make it a great year!

Casey McKenzie

Organization Development: Aligning The Stars, Part 2

2010-01-21T16:30:00.002-05:00

Last time in Part 1, I introduced the fact that organization alignment is the strategy of bringing people, process and technology together to drive profits and growth, which is pretty much stating the obvious. However, it is easier said than done and many retailers fail to optimize alignment or become misaligned soon after a restructuring.

I recently attended a presentation by George H. Labovitz, PhD titled "Rapid Realignment – Leading, Focusing and Mobilizing the Organization". Certain facts that Dr. Labovitz shared in his presentation reinforced my own learning with recent retail clients and validated my experience having worked in key positions at several of the largest retailers in the convenience-petroleum industry.

Retailers fail to optimize organizational alignment or become misaligned shortly after a restructuring for two fundamental reasons. First, retailers don’t have the tools or internal capability to gap or benchmark current technologies. They are very familiar with their own systems but are often frustrated by what the technology can’t do. Some retailers fall prey to the “grass is greener” scenario and are always looking for the latest and greatest (and often very expensive) technology that will solve all their issues. They never come to realization that great systems are simply enablers for great people and great processes. New technology implementations require reallocating human resources by matching different skill sets with the resulting new processes – some refer to it simply as Change. Optimizing profits begins with assessing available technologies and determining the best fit (cost/benefit) for the organization.

Secondly, alignment metrics aren’t documented and considered, or retailers don’t have the tools or internal capabilities to determine the right metrics. Many retailers consider restructuring an event rather than an on-going business strategy that maximizes profits through people, process and technology. And many retailers miss the opportunity to set targets and measure how alignment impacts profits. Some of the most profitable retailers manage change like a project. Key elements of project management – planning, milestones, metrics, lessons learned, and continuous feedback are essential ingredients that can easily be measured and incorporated into a strategy document. Who develops and owns the strategy document? What’s the best practice for how the strategy document is used? How often are results of the strategy discussed with leadership? Those are a few of the questions I want to tackle next time in Aligning the Stars….

Matt Pytosh

Top Trends in BI for 2010 - What Does It Mean For Retail?

2010-01-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

Much of the innovation in Business Intelligence over the years has come from smaller, niche companies and these are becoming fewer and far between in the market due to consolidations and acqusitions. Most of us remember Hyperion, Cognos and Business Objects as niche companies, but all were acquired by larger companies in 2007.  Fortunately, there is still a lot of innovation occuring in Business Intelligence, as retailers and other industries are demanding greater access and integration of their mission critical data/information to support decision making by their users.

Nenshad Bardoliwalla is the co-author of Driven to Perform: Risk-Aware Performance Management From Strategy Through Execution and an enterprise software executive with deep expertise in Analytics, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance Management, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance. He has created an interesting list of Top Trends in Aanalytics, BI and Performance/Risk Management for 2010 on a recent blog. While retail has not necessarily provided a platform for innovaiton from BI companies over the years, it is important for us to review at least a few of these trends and how they might impact our business and the solutions that will be offered from all BI suppliers in the future.

1. Packaged strategy-driven execution applications will emerge - the fusion of analytic and transactional capability in the context of business processes. Not just data for data sake, but rather insights and metrics specific to the business process.

2. Predictive, real-time enterprise - While most of the information we get from our BI systems today are "what happened and why", the future will be more "what will happen tomorrow and why". While this has been a long-term goal for most BI companies and users, cost, algorithm challenges and organizational capability to respond have kept many retailers form adopting this in the past.

3. SaaS / Cloud BI Tools will take revenue from on-premise vendors but also fight for market share amongst themselves. From a functionality perspective, these tools offer great usability, some collaboration features, strong visualization capabilities, and an ease-of-use not seen with traditional BI solutions. Affordability will also be a key factor.

4. Proliferation of data management alternatives to handle large amounts of data.    Additionally, in-memory solutions, which have been discusssed in this blog previously, continue to emerge from both niche and traditional BI vendors.

5. Advanced Data Visualization will continue to increase in depth and relevance - going beyond bar and pie charts and moving toward capabilities such as Google Map or IPhone apps that are currently available to mobile/web users. Retailers are currently providing their consumers with these types of apps to view information and have expectations for their enterprise as well.

6. Open Source offerings will continue to make in-roads against on-premise offerings. Vendors like Pentaho, recently implemented at Sheetz, are really starting to hit their stride by offering complete end-to-end BI stacks at a fraction of the cost of their competitors and thus seeing good bottom-up adoption rates.

7. Data Quality, Data Integration, and Data Virtualization will merge with Master Data Management to form a unified Information Management Platform for structured and unstructured data. While it sounds like a mouthful and it is, this really means retailers need the ability to provide cleansed data from a number of disparate information sources within thier organizaitons by leveraging common definitions and text-driven analytics.   Data is no longer stored, but is virtual and accessible.

8.Excel is here to stay as the dominant end-user BI tool.  Excel 2010 includes significantly enhanced charting capabilities, a server-based mode first released in 2007 called Excel Services, being a first-class citizen in SharePoint, and the launch of PowerPivot, a fast, scalable, in-memory analytic engine that can allow Excel analysis on millions of rows of data at sub-second speeds.

While our industry is still in the infancy stage of BI adoption, many of these new solutions and technologies will allow us to leapfrog quickly into new capabilities and functionality that we haven't even dreamed of before. The key to success will continue to be the organizational capability (resources/competencies) to leverage all this information into meaningful business decisions that will drive performance. What will it take? Are we ready? These should be critical questions for all of us in 2010 and beyond.

Lesley Saitta, CEO

Consumer Loyalty

2010-01-19T15:34:00.005-05:00

Retail’s Big Show 2010 – NRF

2010-01-14T16:30:00.003-05:00

I figured I would give you a break from my normal soap box bantering about Technology Sourcing and the importance of identifying and ranking requirements, and take this opportunity to pass along information about National Retail Federation’s annual conference that was held earlier this week. If you are not familiar with this show, it is similar to the NACSTech conference, without fuel dispensers.

As you enter into technology sourcing project, this may be another data source for you to identify suppliers, and potential solutions. Also, they like NACS, publish their presentations which you may find interesting.

The conference WEB site address is: http://events.nrf.com/annual2010/public/enter.aspx

If any of you had the opportunity to attend this event, I would be interested in your feedback.

Pete Rudd

Portal Technology – Managing Retail and Franchise Construction Projects

2010-01-12T16:36:00.001-05:00

Given the present economy, construction companies seem to have really taken a hit. Most of these companies are trying to figure out how to keep status quo or worse yet trim the budget to survive. There are however, some companies that have found a way to think out of the traditional box and differentiate themselves from other like companies. They have developed a solution that makes them more attractive to their clients and sets them apart from their competitors.

How have they done this you may be asking yourself? They created a process-based solution that integrates all parties involved with the construction process and manage it from one central source.

Let’s understand the problem. Example: When someone purchases a franchise that involves bricks and mortar, speed to open is an important factor to get to revenue. The franchisor wants to get the store up and running for revenue just as quick. But what happens in reality is projects full of delays, redos, materials out of specs with the franchisor and quite honestly a lot of excuses and finger pointing. And somewhere along the way the franchisor saying 'well I hope we learned from this', yet they have no mechanism for capturing lessons learned. In reality most find documenting too time consuming. So they keep doing the same thing and expect different results…insanity.

One of our construction clients decided to try a different approach. They met with several of their franchisors and approached them with becoming their general manager for all construction projects world-wide. This firm is responsible for managing every aspect of the building process and held accountable for meeting the opening date target and staying within budget. The franchisors understand the complexity of construction projects and have realized it doesn’t have to be part of their core competency. They should be focused on growing the franchise and the brand.

Our client built templates for each franchise building project in the portal. Then when their client makes a sale the template is copied and adjustments are made based on the locale. All communication goes through the portal and is recorded. Timing is associated with all steps and build materials are staged for purchase and delivery. Local construction crews are used for the build, and materials are also purchased locally if within franchise building specifications. This builds strong bonds with the community. As each task is completed it is checked off in the portal and email alerts are sent to those in a need to know position. The franchise client reviews the executive dashboard in the portal and can drill down to see detailed progress of each building. For the franchisee, they get to spend more time promoting, hiring, and learning how to run their newly purchased business and now worries about construction and permitting details.

When the economy delivers you lemons, make lemonade.

May we all have a prosperous New Year!!!

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

A Few Thoughts To Begin The New Year. . . . . . . . .

2010-01-08T07:30:00.003-05:00

"If you can laugh together, you can work together." ~ Robert Orben

"It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit." ~Anonymous

GAP Analysis- Finding out what you don’t know!

2010-01-07T07:30:00.001-05:00

Change Management

2010-01-06T19:58:00.001-05:00

Just because you don’t have time for strategy development and business alignment, does not mean it is not exactly what you need to turn your business around.

Big Picture - Training

2010-01-04T14:27:00.023-05:00

I'm guest-blogging for Lesley today, but she'll be back with more Big Picture Industry topics in another three weeks.

In the meantime, I wanted to cover a big picture topic related to my focus area...training. Specifically, I'd like to address web based training. An excellent article on the topic (http://www.scientificmanagementblog.com/2009/11/22/is-web-based-training-better-than-a-classroom/) is written from the perspective of academia, with regard to actual business application. The article (which I won't rehash here) highlights the positive elements of web based training, while still discussing the pros of classroom.

The bottom line of the article, and I would have to agree here: web based training is most powerful for a long course, when participants need a flexible training schedule, and when the web can incorporate multiple methods to cover multiple learning requirements.

I find both web and classroom to be beneficial and to have their specific applications. Tomorrow, in my L&D blog, I'll cover some more details of web based training.

Cary Paul - Partnering Consultant

FUNNY FRIDAY: YOU CAN’T BELIEVE

2010-01-01T07:30:00.001-05:00

Short blog post on this first day of the New Year (and New Decade) while wishing you a healthy, prosperous, and blessed New Year.

In this edition of Funny Friday: You Can’t Believe; you can’t believe how stupid some criminals are. While theft is never a laughing matter whether it’s in the form of employee theft, shoplifting, drive-offs, or the worst, robbery, we can get a chuckle from the actions of some criminals who are, shall we say, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Submitted for your review are these two:

1) When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.

Gives new meaning to the term “self-service” doesn’t it?

2) A man walked into a convenience store, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled-- leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars!

Is this really theft if the crook leaves more money that he took? You hope the cashier had just done a drop otherwise that is a very slow sales shift - $15!

If you’ve ever had this type of encounter, we’d love to hear about it at the blog.

All seriousness aside (hey, this IS Funny Friday) we wish all of you a SAFE and PROFITABLE New Year!

Casey McKenzie

Organization Development: Aligning The Stars, Part 1

2009-12-31T09:39:00.001-05:00

I recently attended a presentation by George H. Labovitz, PhD titled Rapid Realignment – Leading, Focusing and Mobilizing the Organization. The presentation focused on improving profits by optimizing organization alignment. Dr. Labovitz recounted many of his private discussions while consulting with former Navy Chief Vern Clark. I found the following quote to be the most interesting and relevant based on the work I’ve done recently:

When he became the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark told George Labovitz, “I made alignment my #1 goal for the Navy because, in my business, second place is a terminal disease.”

CEOs in the current business environment are now coming to Admiral Clark’s realization that unless they take decisive action to quickly refocus and redirect their organizations, for them too; second place could be “a terminal disease.”

Alignment is the strategy of bringing people, process and technology together to drive profits and growth. The strategy makes sense. It is, however, easier said than done. There are two reasons why many retailers fail to optimize alignment or become mis-aligned soon after a restructuring. Reason one is that retailers don’t have the tools or internal capability to gap or benchmark current technologies. They are very familiar with their own systems but are often frustrated by what the technology can’t do. Some retailers fall prey to the “grass is greener” scenario and are always looking for the latest and greatest (and often very expensive) technology that will solve all the issues and they never come to realization that great systems also require great people and great processes. New technology implementations require reallocating human resources by matching different skill sets with the resulting new processes – some refer to it simply as Change. Optimizing profits begins with assessing available technologies and determining the best fit cost/benefit for the organization.

Reason two why retailers fail to optimize alignment or become mis-aligned soon after a restructuring is that alignment metrics are never considered or retailers don’t have the tools or internal capabilities to determine the right metrics.

……………………continued next time in Part 2.

Matt Pytosh

2010 Trend Roundup: Consumer, CPG, Food and Retailing

2009-12-30T15:11:00.000-05:00

As the attached article from CSN shows, there are some definite trends going into 2010 for Consumers, CPG, Food and Retailing that should be considered by all convenience retailers. While some trends remain negative (restrained consumers looking for value to increased cross-channel competition), there are some positive trends that provide opportunities. These include growth in private label and consumers eating at home for meals.

http://www.csnews.com/csn/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004055420

For more 2010 forecasts, be sure to read the Jan. 11, 2009 issue of Convenience Store News, which features the 8th Annual CSNews Industry Forecast Study, which highlights industry and category performance for the coming year. - Lesley Saitta, CEO

Digital Fortress

2009-12-29T19:22:00.000-05:00

Is there anything like a Digital Fortress? Can someone come up with a fortress that can hold data and be protected with five levels of security that would require 200 quantum computers and an unlimited time to break?

Given that there would be something like this that can hold customer data, what would people that want to get this data do? Nothing? No, they would somehow just click a picture of it from an in-built camera in a mobile phone when it shows up on screen somehow. QED.

Thats how most of these events work. The weakest link is the give-away. Hackers find the weakest spot and turn it into a charmer. More often than not, its really a very long time before someone discovers how the data was stolen, and an un-imaginable number of theories are floated around, and then millions of dollars are spent investigating the how on the breach. This is the truth. They will not come and look in your shredder to get your card data. They will steal the card data that they want from large databases. In millions. As Schnier on security puts it "I'm sure every one of us has a credit card in our wallet whose number has been stolen. It'll probably never be used for fraudulent purposes, but it's in some stolen database somewhere."

Are current security systems that govern our payment systems adequate in provide protection for the customer? One would not think so, as some of the recent breaches that have occurred have taken places with PCI certified payment companies, or retailers. Examples would be Heartland and Forever 21, both of them complained and both breached around the same time. Hackers found very innovative ways of either getting into the fortress, or actually waiting for someone to unlock the data from there, so that they could view it. Its not PCI that makes an organization or system risk averse.

There is certainly a lack of understanding PCI, its derivations and its implementations. I recently met two EMV experts fighting over the fact that a key was supposed to be stored in the crypto chip permanently or temporarily as PCI warrants. They both were right, its only that they read the PCI specifications a little differently. And implemented either way, they both would have cleared the PCI certification.

Its true that the only network security is an "inch of air" between two computers. Its also true that this is not reality. How does one really secure all the gaping holes that are exposed from time to time. Its a very difficult thing to achieve, and thirteen or twenty-one points written on a piece of paper certainly cannot do that. Achieving end-to-end security is a very difficult task, but thats the only solution to this problem.

In our next few blogs we will explore the concepts of end-to-end security and real time fraud management in electronic payments. Keep reading!!

Vivek Awasthi

Supply Chain Management

2009-12-28T19:59:00.000-05:00

If you order 1 time per week (every 7 days), do you really need 29 days of supply on hand?

Dear Santa...

2009-12-24T23:20:00.000-05:00

My previous two posts were related to selecting new technologies and the importance of identifying and prioritizing requirements as part of the process. As we rapidly approach another Christmas, I am reminded of the Christmas wish lists my children would prepare each year, especially my son. In the early days he, like most children, would provide us with a list of items and, as parents we would do our best to find something that was close to the items on the list.

As he got a bit older and learned about catalogs, the lists got more sophisticated to include cut-out pictures of the items, so we would know exactly what we should be looking for. Obviously close wasn’t good enough. As internet popularity increased he even added links to web sites where we could order the absolute correct item without the guesswork. Now of course, we had the final decision as to what showed up under the tree, so if we didn’t buy in, neither did Santa.

So where am I going with this? When you are looking at replacing a technology, or implementing something new, be as specific as you can on your requirements, get buy-in from all key stakeholders, and assign a priority. It’s the best way to get what you ultimately need.

BTW – Did you know that you could download Christmas List templates??

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Impact 21 Group, LLC

Tis the Season – for Markdowns

2009-12-23T07:35:00.002-05:00

Ah, seasonal merchandise. Most c-store retailers have a “love-hate” relationship with seasonal merchandise: Love the sales, hate the markdowns. Seasonal merchandise is, by definition, short-lived and nothing is as outdated as seasonal merchandise past its holiday or season. What are best practices when it comes to seasonal merchandise?

First, determine whether or not you should even carry seasonal merchandise. A few convenience retailers do a very good job with seasonal merchandise because they have a strategy for handling it and they are disciplined in their execution. For many, if not most, seasonal merchandise represents an inventory management challenge. And the primary reason for that challenge is not doing the analysis before-hand.

A review of previous seasonal merchandise sale-through is a good starting point. But go beyond that to determine what effect seasonal items have on total category and total store sales. When I managed confections for a large c-store chain, I found that candy sales did not rise by a material amount when we stocked holiday candy. I’m not saying the holiday candy didn’t sell well but it sold at the expense of our regular candy offering so that the category as a whole did not see a sales lift. And too often our gross profit suffered as well.

The response: A much more focused and narrowed product selection with the emphasis on items that had potential for incremental sales not simply the trading of sales dollars from regular to seasonal candy. This also helped in terms of inventory management as we had less product in-store after the primary selling period. And that brings me to best practice # 2: How to deal with leftover product?

If possible, pre-arrange with your supplier(s) to return unsold product. Regardless of whether or not your supplier(s) participate in taking product back and/or supporting markdowns, you must have a markdown strategy and communicate it clearly to store operations.

A trait common to c-store retailers is the almost phobic resistance to write-offs. We would rather a product sit on the shelf for months than write it down to zero and dispose of it. This is understandable when viewed from the tight gross margin environment in which most c-stores operate but it makes no sense whatsoever from a bottom-line net profit perspective. Allowing any product to sit on the shelf for months will result in a net profit loss if that product does eventually sale because of the share of operating expenses that product needs to cover. Think of each product paying a daily “rent” to occupy space in your store. Obviously, the more days it occupies that space, the higher the rent “meter” runs until one day the rent amount surpasses the gross profit potential of that product.

And with seasonal product you have the additional negative effect on image. i.e., stale product. So rather than die the death of a thousand cuts, have an aggressive post-season strategy. For example, the day after the holiday, markdown 50% for a week, then write-off unsold product and remove it from the shelves. Donate product to charity if you can and are allowed to do so under supplier agreements and applicable laws and regulations. Do not drag out your agony by taking too-little markdowns over multiple weeks.

In summary, to be successful with seasonal merchandise,

1) Purchase smartly based on research and analysis not just because it’s “what we’ve always done”.

2) Have an exit strategy.

3) Implement both with discipline and communicate your plans effectively to suppliers and store operations.

Happy Holidays and Profitable New Year!

Casey McKenzie

Portal Technology – Set Phasers To Stun

2009-12-22T07:30:00.001-05:00

I will be showing my age with this blog. When I was a young lad there was a TV series called Star Trek. Some of you may have heard of this show. I was reminded of this show over the past weekend as the movie series was playing on one of those fancy movie channels.

When I got into consulting 25 years ago my first assignment was to build tools for managing meetings for success using technology to record the meeting content. It took executives a while to get used to their words being projected on a white screen instead of cryptic writing on a flip chart. One interesting dynamic of using technology to collect meeting content in real-time was that people participated more accurately and engaged in a deeper level of thinking. It solved a problem for us in that we didn’t have to type the flip charts up after the meeting; only to hand them out at the next meeting, and have people argue with whether or not they made any agreements during the previous meeting. This was a costly time waster.

The downfall of this new technology was that you had to cart around a huge projector and computer. It looked so easy on Star Trek. You walk into a room and say “computer on” and voila there is data you need. How nice it would be to walk up to any computer connected to the internet and login to your portal and access your data.

Recently a potential client called us in to present our portal technology to solve a challenge they had. In preparation we asked if they had a conference room with internet connection, computer, and projection device. They confirmed and we showed up. We logged in to the portal and began our demonstration. They were stunned. We had full access to all information necessary to solve their challenge. The portal delivered not only the content they needed but also the application. No software besides their browser was needed. They saw us manage process right before their eyes. Walking away from that meeting made me realize that we have finally come to the point of managing process content and delivering it through a secure portal on any computer. No more lugging around PCs and projectors. Just like those flip communicator devices in Star Trek we are able access our portal from our cell phones from anywhere on the planet.

Beam me up Scotty!!!

Please have a wonderful and safe holiday. Remember our soldiers in your prayers.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

POS Security – A Necessary Part of PCI Compliance

2009-12-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

2010 is around the corner, as we all know. And July 1, 2010 isn’t much further away. On that day, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) regulations come into effect, and one of the parts of compliance is POS security.

I’ve summed up some of the basic requirements for POS security so that you don’t have to do your own research, with the help of the folks at PCIComplianceGuide.org. You can read more here if you need to: http://www.pcicomplianceguide.org/posdss/pos-pcicompliance.html. The website of the PCI Security Standards Council contains information around the DSS and other security practices - https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/.

POS vulnerabilities

In August of 2006, VISA, Inc., a leader and originator of PCI Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), released a report on the top three POS vulnerabilities.

Their research revealed the following POS vulnerabilities:

• Remote Access Security - Command-line based and visually driven software packages, such as pcAnywhere or MS Remote Desktop. These remote solutions offer a "back door," which makes them easy targets for hackers.

• Host Security - Usually considered the Host computer, which is the central repository for payment data, authorization, data backup and other management functions. The Host computer is the most vulnerable for intrusion, via the network infrastructure.

• Network Security - Securing and monitoring the network, including activity logging and correct configuration, along with proper encryption and special attention to changing the default passwords within a wireless network environment.

Strong encryption, across the network, is needed in order stop intrusions, as well as having a properly configured system. If a system is not configured properly, a hacker can be in the vicinity of a wireless network and if the wireless network is not configured properly that hacker can gain access to the network and find the encryption key. Once that happens, any sensitive data within that network is potentially compromised, especially if the retailer uses weak encryption algorithms.

Don't underestimate the old fashioned way of stealing information - physical access to the POS terminal, and/or the network. Even your most basic high school student knows the benefits of devices such as flash drives, and there are many other devices that can be physically attached to an open network port, in order to collect the data traveling between the POS terminal and the Host. It can happen from an outside source, or it can happen when someone on the outside knows an employee on the inside..

"People forget that the employees that have access to POS terminals are sometimes in low paying jobs, and they have access to these things," said Rich Mogull, former IT security analyst with Gartner, who now owns his own security consulting firm, Securiosis.com.

He continued, "I mean, no offense to anyone, but you don't have to be the most qualified individual in the world to work at a cash register, so it's easy enough if someone wants a part-time job, to get in and gain access to those."

In summary:

Retailers should follow the PCI DSS, in relation to properly storing, processing and transmitting cardholder data, and the retailer's network should follow these CISP bulletin guidelines:

• Limit access to the network to known devices.

• Do not allow direct Internet access to the POS system, by installing a firewall separating the Internet and the POS system.

• Reject any unauthorized devices attempting to connect to the network.

• Change all default passwords and IDs on all network management devices.

• Implement proper network segmentation, separating the payment processing devices from all other systems like email and web browsers.

• Implement Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption, wherever WPA is supported, over Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).

• Enable firewall logs that can hold up to 12 months of information, and review firewall rules, to ensure that unnecessary ports are disabled, for both inbound and outbound connections.

• Install and maintain firewalls at all times.

Chuck Young

The Ultimate Example of Teamwork

2009-12-18T16:31:00.003-05:00

No known species of reindeer can fly; however, every year this team of nine magical reindeer has only one night to satisfy all their “clients”. This team has been demonstrating an example of the ultimate team, through all types of weather, overcoming all types of unexpected obstacles and even figuring out the most efficient ways around expected problems (like no chimney to go down).

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems most logical according to most GPS systems). This works out to be 826.1 visits per second using census numbers of 91.8 million homes and assuming there is at least one “good child” in each home. Assuming the 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the world this calculates to .78 miles per household and a grand total of 75.5 million miles, not counting for wrong turns and unscheduled re-routes. Santa’s sleigh would be moving at a rate of 650 miles per second – 3,000 times the speed of sound.

Assuming each child receives a gift weighing around two pounds, the sleigh is carrying 321,200 tons, not counting the weight of Santa. The weight of Santa is a variable difficult to calculate due to the countless “goodies” left by good boys and girls. If every one of the 91.8 million homes put out a single cookie and an eight ounce glass of milk, Santa would consume 20,655,000,000 calories. If one pound equals around 3500 calories, Santa would gain 2950.7 tons.

Needless to say, Santa had to select the right team to manage this project. Like all good project managers, Santa had to take into consideration that each team member would have an information role and his/her personality would play an important part of this selection process.

Dasher: Know for energy and short bursts of speed.

Dancer: Displays great elegance and flair

Prancer: Always a team player

Vixen: A consistent performer

Comet: A very strong will

Cupid: Sometimes needs a little extra “hug”

Donder: Very proud

Blitzen: One of the most aggressive reindeer

Rudolph: The most famous reindeer of all

Santa: The mastermind

Always remember –

He sees you when you’re sleeping

He knows when you’re awake

He knows if you’ve been bad or good

So be good for goodness sake

And whether you are talking about Santa or the CEO of your company, don’t be sleeping when it comes to teamwork!

Merry Christmas from the Impact 21 Team

GAP Analysis -- What do you see?

2009-12-17T16:30:00.011-05:00