The ERP Channel

Given the supply chain is the backbone of many businesses, there’s never a bad time to do a quick health check. Many touch points are obvious but often considered too complex for a simple fix. Regardless of what state we believe we’re in, it makes sense to place the magnifying glass on our businesses to form an honest perspective of how we perceive ourselves and how other might perceive us.

Yes this is a clean article; it’s safe to read on. While shopping in Sydney city on the weekend I walked by the Apple store and what struck me was how long I was lingering outside, looking at what people were doing inside the store. This was a retail fishbowl!

In there we a number of people sitting against the window doing emails, presumably using the free WIFI, there are people getting what appeared to be free instructions and other testing the latest products. They all looked like they had a purpose or at least wanted to appear purposeful.

With some lessons learned and what appears to be a more positive start to January, here is a list of prediction for retail in 2013. Obviously it goes without saying that all things digital will be a major focus for the coming year. Social media, digital marketing, mobility and push customer specific promotions are probably already on our list of strategic considerations. These in many respects are at the core of the predictions. So that said;

Here are 10 predictions that will change the face of retail for 2013;

It seems like ages ago we were speaking of online shopping as ‘latest and greatest’, ‘the new face of retail’ and ‘a revolution in shopping’. So now we’re at the end of 2012, what is the market saying to us?

Big Data seems to be one of the latest buzzword to appear in the ITC dialog. I still wonder if most of us understand its meaning or impact.

It appears that various groups believe they have a handle on it the Big Data phenomenon. The interesting thing is that if you comb the internet you’ll see the term being sponsored by companies such as NetApp, EMC and IBM as vendors that manage big or large amounts of data. I wonder if this means that these companies are positioning themselves to capitalise on this slice of the pie or are they still trying to ascertain what it really means in a commercial sense before it’s more widely adopted by the market.