I just returned from a point of sale vendor conference and it’s clear that this business isn’t standing still. Despite a relative lack of innovation before and during the recession of 2008-2010, the last year has shown that mobile devices, web offerings, cloud products, and many other new technologies are set to offer retailers powerful new ways to interact with their customers, more efficiently gather data, and reduce their operating costs.
Mobile platforms such as tablets, smartphones, etc. allow retailers to come out from behind the counter and offer their customers a much more personal and interactive experience, without reducing their data gathering capacity. You can serve a customer in an aisle or near a display, but still capture their demographic info, loyalty points, inventory balances, and process credit cards securely, all from a simple tablet device. Is your store ready for this?
The cloud is going to continue to develop, but we see lots of opportunity for hosted data storage, reporting dashboards, and remote connectivity functions, just for starters. What part of your system would you like to see in the cloud?
In short, there’s a lot going on, and I think the rate of change will only accelerate. Help us understand what you need, and we’ll get there together.
