Successful Workplace

Predictive analytics is big business now. Hand in hand with Big Data they represent one of the only ways to get to know your consumer market and understand how they’ll behave under conditions, respond to marketing and react to incentives. But the problem with all of this is that it’s a constant cat and mouse chase, consumers are […]

The following is a guest post by Sean O’Shaughnessey. Recently, my daughter was in the market for a dress and her experience with the retail store was so positive, she became a fan. Her particular experience was due to a one-in-a-million, perfect store clerk with a photographic memory. Yet now, technology is capable of consistently reproducing […]

This is a guest post by Ted Rubin. Personalization is the new black. The marketing and selling story of today involves knowing and seeing your customer the moment they arrive on your physical or virtual doorstep, and being able to provide differentiated service based on their preferences, history and loyalty. Knowing who they are, listening […]

This week a US Senator wrote to a tech firm which tracks and monitors consumers and asked them to change their practices. Euclid Analytics uses technology and data to help retailers build a consumer relationship by turning in-store behavior into insights and recommendations for improving marketing, merchandising, and operations. They do this by using the […]

Square, the “service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere” has just launched what they’ve labelled as a “Business in a Box” which they say will simplify setting up point of sale for small companies. With a couple of Square readers, iPad stand and a cash drawer you have all you need to get […]

Many made predictions as 2013 kicked off, but one caught my eye. Forrester’s Nigel Fenwick called this new year the Year of Digital Business. As Fenwick points out, there has been a communications evolution that has many retailers scrambling to find ways to get closer to their customers with innovative new technology to beat the […]

Within a week three big and well established UK retail chains will more than likely disappear for good. For Jessops that’s already happened, for HMV and now Blockbuster it’s about to. It continues the trend from the last couple of years that the High Street is dying and dying fast, for goods that can be […]

So we’ve survived the Mayan Apocalypse and a passion-filled election here in the U.S. only to face the “Fiscal Cliff”…will our troubles never end? New years are a chance for new starts so it would be great to start the year looking forward to something other than disaster. For us, there are many reasons to […]

The naysayers became a deafening roar from the moment Facebook’s IPO failed to skyrocket in May of this year. It was stunning how quickly the darling of Wall Street became trailer trash. But look no further than yesterday, when the lockup period ended and insiders could sell 850 million shares. Some did but the stock […]

Ben Zoldan wrote an interesting viewpoint on the effect of the mobility trend, in that becoming social and mobile is eroding the art of connection and communication. On the flipside, Brian Solis, a recognised marketing expert called the latest generation of consumers Gen C in a recent article, C standing for Connected. The truth is […]

I recently wrote about a great customer service experience. It isn’t always quite that good… It seems every year I get to experience at least one  business process that goes horribly wrong.  Here’s the latest, with names removed to protect the guilty. I purchased a new laptop back in June.  At the same time, I […]

I’m sitting at the Denver International Airport with a big smile on my face.  I flew into a large, unfamiliar airport and could have had a tough time. Keep in mind my airport of choice is John Wayne in Orange County  with just 12 gates and in and out in 20 minutes. I’m spoiled. My […]

The bigger the enterprise, the more the division of labor between various departments. These divisions end up being enormous barriers to efficient exchange of information and ideas for ways to improve the way is business done. What happens instead is smaller, less-effective changes at low levels of process or information flow. This is a timeless […]

Unless you’re turned off to the media world, you know that Square received $25M investment from Starbucks yesterday and very soon will be processing your credit or debit card at over half the Starbucks in the US. If Forbes has it right, Square and Starbucks will let you mention your name to the cashier and by knowing […]

Retail has gone through enormous stresses in the past decade, with more to come. Just the normal ups and downs of local and global economies, supply chains and personal taste are a huge challenge. Add to that mix the increasing maturation of concepts like e-Commerce, Big Data, RFID and mobile. Each of these would be […]

The simple act of making an offer to a prospective buyer is as old as commerce itself, but with the help of information technology, is taking an enormous turn. The disruption will be enormous. My wife and I go to the grocery store quite a bit. Sure, we need to eat, but also love to […]