Articles

Retailers small and large understand the value of pop-up stores. Whether it’s to launch a new product, flush out the current season’s inventory, boost sales for the holiday season or simply get to know their customers better – one thing’s for sure, pop-ups are here to stay.

Where we find a lot of retailers struggle though is in finding the right solution to manage transactions made at the pop-up.

We’ve found that the retailers who do pop-ups well really nail these three elements as far as their Point of Sale goes:

1. Integration is essential

Many pop-up stores don’t use a Point of Sale system or they take payment in a way that is totally separate from other systems and this can cause several problems.

One of our customers, Event Cinemas, was using a very manual process to sell gift cards at pop-up stores. They were taking payment on a pin pad which was entirely separate from their ticketing and inventory system making reconciliation and attribution back to each cinema painful and expensive to resource in their accounting department. The entire process was inefficient and prone to error.

Event looked at other mobile apps and cloud-based web stores, but decided they needed more than that. They chose Surefire’s mobile POS system which was rolled out as a pop-up solution to 30+ cinemas around the country. They now have instant reconciliation with their back office and ticketing system.

2. Speed is key

Being able to set up a pop-up quickly and easily with minimal staff is obviously huge advantage for any retailer.

Event Cinemas really give their mobile POS a workout in the lead up to Christmas and Father’s Day where they set up in high traffic areas with a small number of staff. They’ve found that previously customers would see the queue and walk past, but now that they can serve them faster, they’re selling record numbers of gift cards.

The cinema has also extended the use of mobile POS to pop-up food and drink stands within the cinemas and events such as charity golf days and outdoor Moonlight Cinema events. These opportunities just wouldn’t be viable if they couldn’t roll out their mobile solution quickly and easily.

3. Consider the hidden costs

Traditional POS terminals are expensive and time consuming to set up, so a built-for-purpose mobile solution is naturally the way to go.

But astute retailers also consider the hidden costs. How much is it really costing in IT set up time and back office accounting effort? Complex set up and reconciliation are very real costs that are often underestimated or overlooked entirely.

How many staff does it take to set up and operate a pop-up store? Event Cinemas found that after implementing mobile POS, the entire process was more efficient which meant they needed fewer staff to resource their pop-ups which in turn reduced labour costs.

As customers are demanding more from their retail experience, and retailers are challenged with providing it, opportunity abounds for unique and creative pop-up experiences. But, it’s the retailers who apply the right technology for the right purpose who are best placed to grab those opportunities, so they can truly take their store to their customer.

Find out more about how Event Cinemas implemented mobile POS.

Why ERP and Point of Sale are better together

July 9, 2018

Most large organisations using an ERP system tend to roll with whatever Point of Sale module is on offer in that system. After all, they’ve made a substantial investment, so on the surface it makes sense to leverage as much of that investment as possible.

But is an ERP system really the best option for transacting with customers in person?

Why your ERP system probably isn’t the best option for taking payments

When discussing ‘best-of-breed’, Gartner states:

Although enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors offer numerous enterprise applications and claim that their integrated system is a superior solution, all modules in an ERP system are rarely best-of-breed.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with Point of Sale functionality.

Of course, there are countless benefits of an ERP system – largely related to integrated business functions and the associated process improvements, having all data housed in a single location, to the resulting business intelligence and forecasting insights.

But with this power comes complexity. ERP systems are notoriously time-consuming, costly and difficult to learn for end users.

Contrast this with front-line imperatives, where employees deal directly with customers – it’s speed, simplicity and accuracy that are critical.

Insights from our Government clients

This need for speed and simplicity was clearly evident when we implemented our Point of Sale solution for Queensland Boat Harbours, part of the State Transport Department.

They wanted to streamline their process for taking card payments for fees and charges in the field. The process for collecting these fees involved receipting directly into their ERP system, which was time-consuming and involved multiple screens just to accept a customer payment.

Staff members needed costly training in the ERP system to process transactions which was the only activity they used the ERP system for. If a trained staff member wasn’t on duty, payments were sent offsite to a customer service centre for processing – adding more time, complexity and increasing the risk of lost payments.

Our Point of Sale system was installed on their Commonwealth Bank Albert devices and integrates in real time with their ERP system.

When shown how to use the new Point of Sale system, the response from employees was along the lines of ‘Is that all I have to do?’. The new system has freed them up to focus on their ‘real’ job of maintaining a safe harbour. And because they’re no longer burdened with excess paperwork – satisfaction has improved significantly.

Customers have noticed a difference too – no standing at the counter waiting for a receipt or having to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

The Project Manager of the initiative says:

“The project has turned the cumbersome receipting of payments into something that just works. We’re now processing transactions in just 30 seconds.”

So, integrating best-of-breed Point of Sale functionality with ERP means the ERP system benefits from real-time, error free transaction data and the Point of Sale system benefits from the customer data housed in the ERP system. Business intelligence also improves because of high quality, real-time data and both customers and employees are much happier – proving that ERP and Point of sale really are better together.

Find out more about ERP and POS in our Boat Harbour case study.

Part 3 – Just taking payment is not enough: Improving the customer and employee experience

May 15, 2018

Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale

In Part 1 and 2 of ‘Just taking payment is not enough’, we talked about the problem with payment only and the importance of capturing a complete transaction.

The second element is to integrate the Point of Sale with back office systems – existing finance, inventory and CRM. This allows key details about products (including stock levels and pricing), customers (including loyalty membership and order history) and payment to be pulled together for a holistic view of the business.

This approach equips your employees with the tools to provide compelling, highly tailored customer experiences. In fact, customers now expect this. Research from Commonwealth Bank’s Retail Therapy Study indicates 82% of customer say they’ll spend more when they feel valued, and 75% say they feel valued when a business knows their details and order history.

Customers are demanding responsiveness and will vote with their feet – a poor, or even average experience will not lead to return business.

84%

of Australians are more likely to buy from a store they feel connected to

74%

said they would stay loyal to a business that offers personalisation

A good example of customer service improvement is the new solution rolled out to several Australian auto clubs as part of their CARS (Common Australian Roadside Solution) project. The aim of the project was to support members across state lines with a move to a common cloud-hosted system that integrates computer-aided dispatch, CRM and mobile Point of Sale. Having customer details at the point of service is critical to this solution. Terry Agnew, CEO of Western Australia’s RAC, says in the Australian Financial Review, “…every experience that a member has with us has to be totally on-brand – by which we mean how consumers think and feel about us.”

Similarly, a state government transport department recognised that empowering employees also benefits customers, when they integrated mobile Point of Sale with their ERP system. They freed up their employees to focus on their core responsibilities instead of time-consuming administration and significantly enhanced their customer’s experience with on-the-spot transactions (including payment) taking only 30 seconds.

In addition to improving both the employee and customer experience, accurate transaction data is critical for business intelligence. Without accurate data including payment fed into back office systems, it’s very difficult for a business manager to possibly get a handle on where the business is at.

Data quality is critical – incomplete, inaccurate, duplicate and obsolete data is the bane of many analysts’ existence. So, capturing a complete transaction at the point of sale and then integrating this data with back office systems is a significant step in the right direction.

Higher quality, more complete transaction data allows companies to report in real-time on inventory and cash flow for today and enables sharper customer insights and better decision making for tomorrow.

Feel free to reach out to us and find out how more accurate transaction data can help you better serve your customers.

Microsoft Azure Bootcamp – intense, insightful and inspiring

May 3, 2018

Surefire news

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Microsoft Intelligent Cloud Architecture Bootcamp in Bellevue. This was an intensive week of presentations, training, and hands-on workshops. Primarily I came away impressed by how fundamentally Microsoft have changed their company. They are no longer the ‘Windows company’, but a platform computing company at global scale. They have also transformed their technology offering from a proprietary based strategy to one of openness, embracing, no actually encouraging, open source technologies.

During the week I learned a great deal about the capabilities within Microsoft’s cloud platform – Azure. Here are just a few highlights that Surefire will be investigating incorporating into our products and solutions to enable breakthrough capabilities for our customers:

1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)

This is one that Microsoft have simply nailed. Azure AD is the backbone of their IAM capability, and it is absolutely impressive in its scope, depth, reliability and security.

Want single sign-on? You got it, out-of-the-box.

Secure? Far more secure than anyone else can make it.

Need compliance to a specific regulation or standard? Microsoft has the top 72 of them covered.

It has reached the point that it is probably just irresponsible to use anything else.

2. Modern Workloads

Microsoft has invested heavily in supporting modern Microservices workloads in containers both for their own heritage .NET technology stack using Service Fabric, and for the more open source stacks more popular in some verticals, such as Java on Linux, using Kubernetes. Yes, Microsoft might not just catch up, but leap frog AWS with first class native Kubernetes support, in a fully managed service.

And then there’s ‘serverless’. A potentially game changing way of building and running next generation applications and services that are massively scalable and reliable at a very efficient cost.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Azure has a deep and rich capability in AI already today, and Microsoft appear to be investing heavily to build on this even further. With pre-built AI services available such as: OCR, Object recognition, and Language translation (this being at human parity!), and a capable and growing toolkit for training your own AI, the possibilities abound.

So in summary, Microsoft definitely convinced me that their Azure offering is transforming completely away from the proprietary ‘Windows world’ to an open, trustworthy, and extremely powerful compute platform.

Companies such as Surefire can take advantage of this to deliver highly innovative products and services that will enable our customers to more fully engage with their customers in a meaningful way, creating a sustainable strategic competitive advantage.

Mark Webster

Mark is Head of Development at Surefire Systems and is strongly focused on rapidly and frequently delivering business value and crafting solutions that delight our customers.

PART 2 – Just taking payment is not enough: Capture a complete transaction

April 30, 2018

In our previous article, we explored some of the problems with just taking payment on a mobile pin pad. In this article, we look at how to do payment better.

Integrating Point of Sale systems with payment is critical as it allows a business to capture a complete transaction at the point of sale.

No reconciliation required

Because the complete transaction record serves as a single version of the truth, no manual reconciliation is required.

Accuracy and speed

The retail front-end is often a busy place and sales people can get distracted, leading to manual entry errors. But with integrated payment, there is minimal manual entry reducing the chance of error, and saving valuable time for both the business and the customer.

Less risk of fraud

Similarly, because reconciliation is automated, this reduces the chance of an employee manipulating the data to cover fraud.

Capturing a complete transaction means the sales process is automated with accurate product and pricing details and the sales total more reliable.

Smart payment devices

What is really exciting in this space, is the rise and rise of application capable payment devices. These new terminals connect to your bank for secure, fast and compliant payment processing and allow Point of Sale apps to run on the actual payment device – fundamentally changing the way businesses can serve their customers.

These devices are becoming more and more capable. 4G gives coverage around most of the country. The batteries last a shift and the devices can have bar code readers built in.

We recommend businesses deploy a built-in app for POS (rather than deploy via a browser) so they can run offline and still capture all transaction details on the spot.

The mobile POS apps are easy to use and receipts can be emailed or SMSed directly to customers. This creates a new connection with your customer enabling loyalty, discount offers and incentives to return and buy more.

We talk more about the customer experience in Part 3 of this series, where we stress one essential component critical for both the customer and employee experience.

Surefire has a range of mobile apps designed specifically for smart payment devices. For more information on these, see our Mobile Product Suite.

PART 1 – Just taking payment is not enough: The problem with mobile payment

April 26, 2018

Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale

As consumers we’re a tap-happy lot. When paying for products and services, we expect to be able to tap and go whenever and wherever it suits us. We buy from all types of retail stores, we go to events, pay for food and drink and receive deliveries, all in various locations.

Many companies meet this expectation by using mobile pin pads that now work over wireless networks. These devices do work fast and have become well accepted.

So, mobile payment – sorted. Right?

But what about the sales record? Who paid for what, and when?

Regardless of whether the sale is being recorded in a CRM, ERP or other transaction system, if it is disconnected from the payment taken on a pin pad, both records must be reconciled. This involves matching the list of sale records with the list of card payments from the pin pad. This might be done by the business owner burning the midnight oil, or by their accountant charging a premium for their time, or in a large firm, by the accounting department.

We often hear CFOs say something like this:

Of course, the chances of the sale and payment records always matching are slim. Reconciling the two is time consuming, frustrating and ultimately adds significant overhead costs to the business. In some cases, it may even add delays to finalising the sale.

We’ve written before about the high cost of reconciliation which affects not just finance, but inventory and customer data also.

In cases where no transaction system is being used at all, then the sales record is non-existent. This might suit a handful of micro-businesses, but for most companies it means a lot of manual work.

Managing inventory, for example, is entirely manual and prone to error. After a day of trading, how does a store or field service business know how many of each product they’ve sold and which products to re-order? They are totally reliant on a physical stock count involving pen and paper or a spreadsheet.

How does the business handle their tax liability – especially with mixed supply? Accounting for Goods and Services Tax becomes a guesstimate, at best. And what about those customers who want a Tax Receipt? Well, that’s manual too, as the pin pad receipt only details payment, not products and therefore not GST.

Manually entering the sale amount into a pin pad is another unnecessary cost, adding real dollars to the cost of sale. Add to this the fact that people make mistakes – we’re all human – manual entry leaves room for error and, in some cases, fraud.

So, in today’s competitive business environment, just taking payment is no longer enough.

So, what’s the alternative? How can we do mobile payment better?

Find out in Part 2 – Just taking payment is not enough: Capture a complete transaction.

How mobile is transforming consumer experience

We all know how personal mobile technology has changed our lives – from email in our pockets, to maps on the go, to the apps that we can’t live without. Mobile technology is changing our lives as consumers too, transforming the way we interact with retailers, the way we purchase and even our attitudes about the stores we visit.

I have built solutions for retailers for over 20 years and been in and around retail businesses literally all my life, and love seeing how technology can enhance the shopper’s experience in a store. Mobile technology is another step in this process – here’s how I see it transforming the customer experience

Engagement

We still love shopping in stores – yes, we can and do make some purchases online, but the majority of us still like to go into a bricks and mortar store, see the goods and engage with the staff. We like to ask questions, consider options, take advice. Research indicates that this is not going to change any time soon. Mobile technology is transforming this engagement, giving the staff information literally at their fingertips – information about the products, stock levels, pricing, more information than they could ever keep in their heads. Having this level of information increases engagement dramatically and adds real value to customers.

Queue busting

Not only can staff with mobile technology provide information to customers, they can actually check them out as part of the same conversation, there and then at the shelf, with no need for the customer to lug the goods to a fixed checkout. Queues are the biggest negative cited by customers about shopping in store, so eliminating them scores plenty of customer satisfaction points for the retailer.

Digital receipts

Whilst digital receipts are not exclusive to mobile technology (some retailers do offer digital receipts at fixed POS), they are certainly strongly driven by the practical need to streamline mobile device checkout and remove printers. Digital receipts are becoming more and more popular with customers, as they realise the benefits of not having a wallet stuffed with pieces of paper, lower risk of losing a needed receipt and a faster checkout.

The ‘everywhere store’

Shoppers want convenience, so if the store can come to them, they love it and are more likely to purchase. Retailers understand the value of the pop-up, and mobile technology dramatically cuts the time and cost of setting up the POS for a temporary store. Last Christmas, busy shoppers were able to buy and activate Event Cinemas’ gift cards from a store on the street, without having to go in to the cinema. They showed their delight with this approach by buying record numbers of cards.

We know from research that the in-store experience is one of the biggest drivers of loyalty to a brand, and that loyal customers spend more. So retailers are focusing on ensuring customers have the best possible shopping experience, and mobile technology is one most effective ways they can deliver the best possible in-store engagement.

The digital shift in payment – convergence of mobile payment and Point of Service

Mobile payment is so well established now that we give it little thought – we expect to be able to pay anywhere.

Point of Sale has traditionally been the checkout point in retail stores – built for security and control, but not necessarily with the flexibility to embrace new forms of payment such as mobile.

But whilst POS systems and mobile payment pin pads are both well established technologies, what has been far more elusive until now is the ability to bring them together – that is, to offer mobile payment with full transaction capability. .

We see a major shift occurring with Point of Service and payment converging. It is a shift driven by consumers’ demand for convenience and for being able to transact the way they prefer – and, as we know, the consumer is gaining increasing power and control over this choice.

This shift is good for the customer, and good for retailers, who realise that simply capturing payment is not enough. A ‘stand-alone’ payment transaction – that is, one that is not linked to transaction data – not only means that you have to manage reconciliation, but that you also miss out on capturing the full details of the transaction. These details – the customer, the product, accurate pricing, loyalty – are the very essence of customer insight!

So what does this convergence mean in practice?

What it means is that instead of just making a payment at the pop-up store, the retail customer can swipe her loyalty card and have the points instantly added to her balance, she can use a gift card and the retailer can update inventory and financial systems in real time, saving the cost of end of day reconciliation.

It means that the field service engineer can instantly update the inventory system to show the parts he has used, and send digital receipts for payments.

It means that local government can offer self-service payment kiosks that update back end financial systems in real time.

It means that healthcare providers can update patient medical records at the same time as taking payment.

Payments and POS have co-existed for many years, but their convergence creates a complete transaction record and new source of valuable business data. Payment and POS convergence enables reduced time and cost of reconciliation to back end systems, and drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It is time to embrace the shift to consumer choice and re-align to capturing and utilising the data that matters.

The cost of reconciliation

Reconciliation is a costly business. I’m not talking Reconciliation in the political sense here, I’m talking Reconciliation in the business transactional sense. I mean tying together the key pieces of data that make up a financial transaction – customer information, product and inventory information and financial information.

This is a process faced by anyone who takes payment for products and services from a customer – from retailers, to local government, to field service companies, to transport companies, to healthcare providers.

The issue is that at the time that the transaction takes place, not all the information is connected, so it has to be pulled together, or reconciled, after the event.

For example, a pop-up store takes payment on a mobile terminal and swipes the customer’s loyalty card, but at the time of transaction has no access to customer information or to inventory. At the end of the day, the transaction has to be reconciled to the loyalty system to give the customer his points, and to the inventory system to update stock levels.

A roadside assistance engineer uses the parts from his van stock to service a customer call, but has no immediate access to the inventory system. At the end of each day he has to send stock-level information through to head office for reconciliation.

A budget airline offers customers the option to upgrade their luggage allowance at the airport – they take payment on a mobile device, but have to manually reconcile the customer and luggage systems to build a new manifest.

A local government wants to offer self-service bill payment to citizens, but unless the self-service device is connected back to the financial and customer databases, reconciliation has to be performed at the end of the day.

A healthcare nurse on the road delivers care and medications to patients. In some cases, payment is taken on the spot, but from a standalone terminal, with no link back to patient records, so reconciliation has to be done manually at the end of the day. In other cases, an invoice is generated and sent after the visit.

So what is the cost of reconciliation?

One local government estimates the cost of physically serving a bill payment customer is $39.
A healthcare provider estimates the cost of sending an invoice at $50.
A retailer knows that for every 3 inches of printed receipts he can replace with digital ones, he saves $160,000 per year.

Then there is the lost opportunity cost – the engineer sent to a call out without the right parts because inventory wasn’t updated. The disgruntled customer who couldn’t use his points because the system wasn’t updated the same day. The airline customer who couldn’t find a staff member because they were tied up with updating baggage systems.

All of these are very real costs and challenges. And all can be addressed and eliminated by using a Connected Transaction approach – harnessing the power of the Cloud to tie together all this key information in real time. If reconciliation happens in real time, as the transaction is made, service providers have a massive opportunity to drive down costs, increase efficiency and maximise business opportunity.

Mobile POS – why you DON’T have to start over

Mobile POS – it’s one of the most commonly cited ‘planned projects’ on retailers’ radars. They understand the reasons and the benefits of going mobile, and there is a plethora of software providers with great looking products, so what is holding them back? Why have more not yet made the leap and moved to mobile POS?

I’d suggest it’s two things: the two things that cause the most hesitation about any change – time and money.

There is a widely held perception that a transformation to mobile POS is very expensive and very time consuming. Millions of dollars and years rather than months. The main reason for the perceived cost and time is that truly effective mobile POS is not a stand-alone system. A good POS system is not just about taking payment, it is about connecting that payment with backend business data – data about the customer, about products, pricing, inventory, loyalty, special offers, gift cards and more.

And that is where this perception of cost and time to move to mobile POS comes from – retailers believe (in many cases fuelled by software vendors) that in order to access all that data, they have to get rid of their existing systems and start again with the data in the new mobile POS system. Big job, big expense, long timeframe.

But what if that wasn’t the case?

What if retailers didn’t have to throw out their existing systems to move to mobile POS?

What if, instead of starting again, they could harness their legacy system and connect that data to the mobile POS, seamlessly, in real time.

What if they could have a whole store network up and running with mobile POS in 6 months, at a fraction of the cost of starting over?

I’ve spent my working life developing systems for retailers and I understand the investment they have made, the value of that data and the resistance to throwing it out and starting again. Combine that with a deep understanding of payment systems, excellent working relationships with Australian’s leading banks and the emergence of cloud as a robust business technology and you have the basis for a new approach to mobile POS. This approach has seen major Australian retailers roll out within 6 months, utilising, not replacing, their existing systems.

This approach is a game changer, not only for retailers, but to field service providers, transport companies, pop up venues, healthcare and local government – anyone who needs to integrate mobile payments with customer and inventory data. Anyone who can see through the hype of ‘rip and replace’ and understands the value of leveraging the value that they already have in their business.

Dale Corrigan

Dale

Mobile POS – 10 tips for a successful POC

There is no better way to determine the benefits of a new system than running a proof of concept – a small scale implementation within a subset of your business can be used to extrapolate the impact of a full scale rollout. As a retail software developer for 20 years, I’ve seen an enormous number of POCs, as you can imagine. I – and my customers – have learned a great deal from these, and in this article I’d like to share with you some of the insights we’ve gained.

Let’s start with what not to do – the biggest mistakes that I see are:

Fixed ideas – rather than starting with an open mind, some organisations take the rather limited approach that a POC is to ‘prove’ that their hypothetical solution works. The issue with this approach is that it doesn’t allow for the possibility that the concept may not be proved and that the first concept may not be the best.
Too big – trying to cram too much into a single POC, which requires a big investment of time and money. This then has the knock-on effect of the ‘sunk cost dilemma’; the investment is deemed too big to be ‘wasted’, so lessons aren’t taken on board and flexibility is sacrificed.
Paralysis – being convinced that a POC is such a massive undertaking that it never gets started.

“A POC is a chance to reject ideas”

I see a POC as a chance to try, and possibly reject, alternative approaches. This is only possible though with a rapid, agile and low cost POC. I call this approach ‘fail fast’ – I believe that a good POC is one that shows you what doesn’t work as well as what does – but quickly.

Aim to ‘fail fast’; find out what doesn’t work – quickly

Mobile POS is probably the biggest focus area for my clients, and our success with POCs has seen them up and running in 6 weeks, with full implementations in 6 months. And I’m not talking about small retailers with a handful of outlets – these are some of Australia’s top retailers with an extensive nationwide network of stores.

“Full mobile POS implementation in 6 months is possible – we’ve got customers who’ve done it”

Based on ours and our clients’ joint experience, here are my top 10 tips to a fast and successful Mobile POS proof of concept.

Don’t over-complicate – just get started. Mobile POS does not have to replace all POS functionality – so don’t try to do everything at once. Start with mobile POS and have ongoing enhancement in mind, it will be a continual improvement process.
Find a sponsor. Mobile POS is a business enhancement, not solely a technical project, so consider your digital team leader, marketing and store operations, even the CFO or CEO
Keep a customer focus at the forefront of your project. It really is about deeper customer engagement and more timely and relevant service. Build customer response into your evaluation criteria for the POC.
Embrace the opportunity to address associate empowerment and lift productivity. As well as customer benefits, consider opportunities to make the most of in-store team and their skills – it builds focus, energy, ideas and enthusiasm.
Harness the knowledge of your in-store team – encourage them to determine where mobile POS can best be used. They have the greatest in-depth knowledge of store operations and customer requirements, so don’t make all the decisions at head office. The more you can engage them in the POC, the more they will support the final solution. Have discussions on how mobile can help boost productivity – with customers, stakeholders and staff.
Select the POC store(s) based on customer requirements and staff skills and attitude. You want to ensure that the POC results can be extrapolated out to the wider business, and also that you select staff who will see the positives of making the POC a success.
Ensure you build a solution you can rely on: Maintain discipline with POS integrity – accurate pricing, integrated data and settlement and other retail business rules are essential for a robust system.
Use familiar tools wherever possible – consider using the mobile devices that staff are familiar with, so that they can focus on how to provide better services and store processes
Understand the fact that your teams will learn fast from live experience. Stores are the core of the POC, so support stores to trial and learn. Get live in store experience, with a working solution, and create a new way to focus on the customer.
Above all – don’t be afraid to fail, but fail fast. Too many POCs start with rigid ideas, which are not changed, even in the face of evidence that they are not working. The great thing about a rapidly implemented, contained (and therefore lower cost) POC is that it gives you the opportunity to rapidly try different approaches and reject those that don’t deliver benefit. We need to think of the POC as an iterative process; a process where rejecting trialled approaches that don’t work is as important as keeping those that do.
The ultimate proof point of this approach is our customers’ success – here’s what a couple of them have to say:

“We have taken the approach that it’s better to fail fast and learn a lot from it and Surefire was a good fit in this regard. They were willing to work with us in a fairly agile state and there was minimal upfront investment.”

“What was great about the Surefire solution is that there was no big capital outlay to get started. The financial model supported the rapid implementation approach”

I’m passionate about changing the way that POCs are conducted – I know from experience that they don’t have to be massive lumbering projects, which can’t change direction once started. They can be fast, agile and fantastic learning experiences that pave the way for successful implementations.

Ring the changes – a new approach to POS investment

Point of Sale

The retail industry has long understood the value of effective technology and made significant IT investments – building systems to manage sales transactions, supply chain, inventory, promotions and customer data, delivered to the store through fixed POS and back office infrastructure. These systems are designed around the need to be robust, efficient and reliable, with a focus on high throughput and availability, rather than flexibility.

Massive amounts of investment dollars go into design, development and change of the systems; the hardware and software to operate them; maintenance to keep them up and running; staff training and the in-store space needed to accommodate the POS technology. Not to mention the significant investment in time to adapt to changing requirements, and the lost opportunities of being a follower and not a leader. And a significant proportion of these costs is in the form of upfront capital outlay.

Shifting market requirements

Customer demands for engagement are now driving a shift to a new set of capabilities – the unified commerce world of staff empowerment, boosted efficiency and above all, focus on the customer.

Ken Morris of Boston Retail Partners puts it this way: “Retailers have to engage with consumers where they want, any time they want and have a consistent message across the brand. In the unified commerce world, it’s all connected in real time. I don’t just mean the web side, but the mobile side, the web side and the store side—all in real time”.

Retailers are struggling to meet these requirements with their current systems. According to EKN research, 40% of retailers believe that their current POS systems are unable to meet future retail needs.

The traditional approach to delivering new capabilities is either to adapt existing systems, or to pull them out, and start again – rip and replace. Both of these approaches have two significant inhibitors – time and cost.

Ken Morris of Boston Retail Partners agrees: “Retailers aren’t going to throw their legacy applications away, they’re not going to throw their investments away, but what they have to do is link it all in real time”

Extend, Connect, Engage

So just how do retailers ‘link it all in real time’ and deliver unified commerce from a base of their existing systems?

The answer is a to take a platform approach that I describe as Extend, Connect, Engage.

Extend existing systems – using APIs and Adapters – to deliver new processes
Connect current infrastructure – via the Cloud – to new devices and services
Engage with customers – using Mobile technology – in a unified commerce environment.

Ken Morris defines it this way: “The most important component is a middleware layer, a piece of software that connects the dots”.

The great strength of this approach is that it harnesses the existing investment in core systems such as pricing, product, promotional and customer data, and combines it with the power of Cloud to connect directly to the store and Mobility to engage with customers.

This is way more than just a technology solution though – it is a fundamental shift in the way that retailers invest in POS.

With no need to adapt, or worse, throw out and replace, those core systems that hold so much of the retailer’s value, massive change development and implementation cost is eliminated
By connecting core systems directly to the store, need for the back office is removed, generating significant savings
Use of mobile POS will reduce spend on fixed POS hardware and associated maintenance
Staff are familiar with Mobile technology and investment in training time and cost is reduced
Replacing some (or even all) fixed POS with Mobile means the space previously needed for checkouts can be re-purposed e.g. for additional merchandise
Mobile devices can be multi-functional, being used for say, booking in deliveries, as well as sales, reducing the cost of additional back office hardware
With a SaaS model, upfront capital expenditure is dramatically reduced, and payment is made as benefits are realised

This approach isn’t ‘pie in the sky’ future thinking – this is real, it is happening now, it is installed and driving massive savings and business opportunities for some of Australia’s leading retailers.

The Extend, Connect, Engage approach is the shift that retailers are looking for in the way they deliver technology to the store and the way in which they invest in POS and the way in which they implement unified commerce.

Mobile POS – opening a new world of business opportunity

Mobile POS is at the very heart of the transformation taking place in retail – the merging of digital with bricks and mortar retailing, known as Unified Commerce. This transformation touches every part of retail, and is made possible by the convergence of mobile technology, digital payments and cloud communication. As individual components, none of these technologies is new, but being able to put them together and, crucially, to use them to link to traditional back end systems packs a powerful punch.

Retailers clearly see the benefits of Mobile POS, and research (from Retail Info Systems) shows that all bar 16% of retailers have plans to implement it. So just what is it that retailers are looking to gain from implementing Mobile POS ? The answer is: A whole world of new business opportunities…

We can divide these opportunities into three key categories:

Customer engagement, Customer satisfaction

The Holy Grail for retailers is satisfied customers – loyal customers who return time and time again, who spend more each visit and who tell their friends and family how much they love the brand. Mobile POS can help to drive up this engagement and satisfaction – it can be used to enable staff to engage with the customer in the aisle, help them with product information, show them items that are not on the shelf, arrange delivery and take payment without queuing. Pop-up stores with Mobile POS bring your goods to the shopper, saving them having to enter the store at all. Flexible digital payment options make customers feel the retailer understands and wants to help them, rather than imposing limitations. Mobile POS = Customer Engagement = Customer Satisfaction.

Increase sales, no lost sales

How many times do retailers lose a sale between the aisle and the checkout ? Of course they don’t know with 100% certainty, but what they do know is that reducing or eliminating it can only increase sales and profit. Maybe customers can’t find the item in their size/colour or simply can’t find someone to help them with the information they need to finalise their decision. Or they get fed up with waiting to hand over their payment and simply walk out. Mobile POS, with endless aisle and queue busting capability can go a long way to driving down those invisible lost sales and converting them to highly visible dollars.

Productivity and process management

Retailers can be so focussed on the selling function of their store, that they neglect the other reasons customers visit – to process returns or make layby payments for example. These processes are often carried out only at a service desk and are not always as customer friendly as the selling. Mobile POS can transform this side of the business too, with staff having the tools to serve these customers from anywhere in the store, and with full visibility of all the necessary data to support a smooth and easy process, which is efficient for the customer and the retailer’s staff.

There is a lot of excitement about the opportunities that Mobile POS offers, with many retailers planning to put it at the core of their operation, keen to open the door to a new world of business possibilities.

The retailer’s Christmas nightmare – and how to avoid it this year

March 20, 2018

It’s a week before Christmas, your store is packed, and goods are moving off the shelves as fast as you can replace them. But….queues are growing, customers are getting disgruntled and some are just giving up and leaving without buying. This is every retailer’s worst nightmare – not being able to serve customers who are in already your store, wanting to buy.

What if you could solve this problem, and solve it in time for this Christmas – no more queues, no more walk-outs, just increased sales and delighted customers.

Mobile POS can help address the Christmas nightmare, and deliver customer engagement, increased sales and better productivity all year round. Most retailers are aware of the benefits of Mobile POS, and research from Retail Info Systems shows that 84% of retailers have plans to implement it at some point. But many are put off starting by the perceived cost and time needed to get up and running.

With the right approach however, it’s possible to trial in weeks and implement across your entire store network in months – which means that if you start now and if you implement a solution that gets you up and running fast, you can be queue busting by December.

In my experience, there are a few key elements to swift implementation of Mobile POS:

Don’t over-complicate – just get started. Mobile POS doesn’t need to be complex. Think of it as a starting point, and have ongoing enhancements in mind.
Add to what you have, complement it – don’t replace it. Mobile POS can sit alongside your existing POS.
Utilise the Cloud to connect your existing systems to Mobile POS – ensure you maintain integrity of pricing and discount data.
Don’t forget that integrated payment is an essential element of Mobile POS if it is to deliver real value – you have to be able to offer checkout as well as information.
Use familiar technology so that your staff learn quickly and engage – their feedback is invaluable at the trial stage to understand where Mobile POS is going to deliver most value.

With this approach, a Mobile POS implementation across all your stores by Christmas is a reality, and your nightmare scenario could become a dream Christmas.

Customer Engagement

September 10, 2016

Mobile Payments

A recent study by RSR Research concluded that, “Retailers recognize that in-store employees need to do more to create customer engagement, but they also recognize that ‘more’ will happen best when both store associates and consumers are able to leverage mobile technology as part of that engagement.”

The world has changed. Customer expectations are increasing and this dynamic is not going to go away. The preference is for a more personal and convenient experience.

With a focus on learning fast and helping retailers increase their store associate’s motivation and sales capability – we embrace a mobile-first world. Mobiles are how most retail associates communicate, learn, ask and work.

We also addressed creating a complete POS solution with integrated payment. The goal was to offer retailers new ways to execute more personal service and get them started on the path to digital transformation.

And again we recommend to learn, revise and continually improve the process.

At the same time, our customers told us store systems needed more flexibility and agility to be able to engage, service and delight customers. Integration became a key component to reducing cost and risk plus keeping up with change.

A major SHIFT in Retailing:

Handle peak periods and high volume sales more efficiently for the ‘I want it now’ customer;
Increase employee capability through on the job training and access to product information;
Capture customer feedback and observations at the point of engagement;
Most productivity through continually improvement of operational processes;
Support store operations to re-design store layouts; re-use valuable space at the font of the store;
Support supplier collaboration through more effective execution of promotions;
Create pop-up sales capabilities for peaks, events and special periods ensuring integration of stock and pricing data plus taking payment on the spot.

Increasing customer engagement and satisfaction needs to be measured through bigger baskets, better margins and increased loyalty.

The true value of POS transformation comes from corresponding store process improvement and operational execution.

The implementation model: implement fast – get results – fine tune and move forward.

Mobile POS Justification

August 6, 2016