State of the Industry

Escalate Retail Delivers Landed Cost Capabilities

In a recent press release, Escalate Retail has landed a beta site for its newest release.  And it’s the direction the application has taken that will really allow multi channel businesses to reach peak efficiency and profitability.  Here is an excerpt and one of the most important pieces of the press release:
San Diego – July [...]

Forecasting & Inventory Management, Freight Costs, Outsourced services, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning

Why Are Your Web Customers Calling the Call Center?

In talking with a past client today regarding call center metrics, a measurement came up that we see people try and measure but not enough actually do.  The measurement I am referring to is the percent of web orders that begin on the website but are finalized in the call center.  In this particular case [...]

Call Center Services, State of the Industry

MICROS-Retail: Product Developments, New Version Features and Recent Customer Implementations

I recently had an in-depth conversation with Chris Sarne the VP of Sales at MICROS-Retail – an industry leading order management software provider – about future releases, developments, offerings, implementations, etc. In a nutshell, here’s how the conversation went:
MICROS-Retail is continuing to further enhance their retail integration from Xstore Point of Sale System to the [...]

Multi-Channel Business Systems, State of the Industry

One option for going direct to your customers

In this economy, everyone is looking for some kind of advantage – a way to build their brand image, how to increase product margins, reduce warehouse and logistics expenses – all while sticking to their core competencies.  This can be especially difficult for consumer product goods companies and manufacturers.  Often times they sell through vendor [...]

Call Center Services, Outsourced services, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning, Warehousing Distribution Planning, e-Commerce

Manage Metrix: Inventory & Merchandising Modules Announcement

Since third quarter 2008, we have been engaged with Taurus Software to develop best in class business intelligence and KPI/dashboard application – the first specifically for multi channel businesses and covering all areas of the business.  In conjunction with the application, we have developed a set of services to assist companies utilize the application to [...]

Business Intelligence Tools, State of the Industry, Vendor Press Releases

Spending in a down economy: One factor to doing it right, due diligence.

You might be wondering how you can spend appropriately in a down economy – especially after seeing how Congress has spent our money lately.  But there really are opportunities in a down economy that make sense to some businesses.  Take for example the latest transaction between Amazon and Zappos, a business [...]

Acquistion Due Diligence, Merger and Acquisition, State of the Industry

Now You Have Access to Your Data, Now What Do You Do With It?

I recently read a study by the Aberdeen Group regarding how users of BI, KPI and dashboard application benefit compared to their counterparts.  This study validated several of the aspects that we have seen and gave us some new insight as well.  I have added some summary points from the report, however the full document [...]

Business Intelligence Tools, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning

Analyzing Your Company’s Marketing ROI – 5 Problems Revealed

Recently a few of us at our firm set out to develop a sophisticated marketing business intelligence module with our partner company Taurus Software.  In order to do this we decided we would meet with as many multi channel companies from $10 million in sales to $100 million in sales as possible, as well as [...]

Business Intelligence Tools, Marketing & Merchandising, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning

Does an “All in One” Software Solution Really Exist?

15-20 years ago companies were often times buying most of their software from a single vendor.  Order management software vendors were supplying everything – AR, AP and GL modules, manifesting, order entry and customer service, warehousing functions and a full reporting suite.  Over time best of breed approaches were becoming more prevalent as niche vendors [...]

Multi-Channel Business Systems, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning

Understanding Your Demand Winners

Almost every company that we work with can easily rattle off and name the top 10-20 products with the highest gross sales, or demand winners.  But often times these same companies couldn’t tell us which of those items are profit winners.  The first guess is usually those core items that they never want to be [...]

Forecasting & Inventory Management, Marketing & Merchandising, State of the Industry, Strategic, Financial and Operational Planning