Paul Goepfert
Paul Goepfert is the Marketing Manager for ERP vendor Pronto Software. @PaulGoepfert
Website URL: http://www.pronto.com.au
Consumers are changing… so are our retail stores. In this blog I won’t discuss the new trends like omni-channel, store layout, and more; I will focus instead on the higher objective which should be the starting point of all these retail initiatives.
Most retailers are already sophisticated. Many now have an eCommerce website, capture customer data and spend so they can proactively adjust their store layout to optimise sales. These aspects of retail were differentiators in the past, but not anymore in a mature industry. So, how can you further differentiate and get customers walking in your store instead of the alternatives across the road? The key word is “amaze”.
Most of us who work in a data-related field are familiar with the universal themes and controversy surrounding Freakonomics.
Freakonomics, the brainchild of two economists who use economic principles to explain and explore just about every aspect of society, was introduced to us in the mid-2000s as a book, and then made into a documentary. It has now evolved into a blog and discussion platform for all things relating to numbers, statistics and what we can deduce from data, using data sets to debunk, disprove and uncover startling reasons for why things may be they are.
It has been an exciting year of growth and change at Pronto Software.
As a company, we hit the ground running at Kickstart in February and had a great time discussing with Australian business and technology media what 2012 would have in store for the ERP and BI space. At the same time, we were proud to launch a new brand and direction for the company that has seen us through a series of significant milestone moments this year.
Each time the topic of ‘IT jobs’ comes up in the media, it attracts varying degrees of speculation and debate about what vendors should be doing to meet perceived challenges. There is often alarm and concern assigned to research findings that would lead us to believe the entire industry is somehow in trouble.
With the rise of the global Chinese factory and the strength of our currency, manufacturing is under increasing pressure. Statistics provided by the Australian Government indicate that the share of manufacturing in the Australian economy has declined steadily:
