1/3/12 – Mobile Shopping Activity on the Rise – Are you ready?
If this past holiday season taught us anything it’s that we’re addicted to our mobile devices.
- U.S. smartphone penetration is up to 44% and 57% of those owners access the mobile web and download apps on a regular basis
- Time spent with mobile devices has also risen to 65 minutes per day, which is second only to TV
- Fifty-six percent of smartphone owners have looked for store information on their device while 32% have actually made a purchase
- By 2015, it is estimated that m-commerce transactions will amount to $670 billion
Is your business ready for the mobile revolution? At DROSTE, we are releasing our first client-branded Mobile App, DROSTE iOrder and we know this is the wave of the future. As smartphones get smarter (hello, Siri), businesses must advance their thinking as well. Having a readily accessible app that delivers a stellar mobile experience is the key ingredient to capturing a portion of these m-commerce dollars.
Not convinced? A recent survey indicated that 2 out of every 5 shoppers who have a negative mobile experience with a brand will not come back. They won’t try again on a laptop or desktop computer, won’t make their way to a brick and mortar retailer, they won’t even try accessing the mobile application again. Imagine if you lost two out of every five customers who came into your store. Scary, right?
While getting an app launched is time-consuming there are some interim steps you can take. Ensure that your location can be found on other mobile-heavy applications such as Foursquare, Shopkick or Yelp. Make it easy for customers to find you and you’ll make it even more enticing for them to shop with you. And don’t forget that having a website that can be accessed on a mobile phone is very different from having a mobile-enhanced website. Mobile is our future and it’s time for businesses to jump on board.
If you’d like to know more about DROSTE iOrder Deli/Bakery Pre-Order Mobile App, please visit the link on the site or contact us at 978-686-5775. We’d be happy to show it off and discuss ways we can help you join the mobile revolution!
Sources: M-Commerce Booming On Tablets, Online Media Daily, November 2011; 2 in 5 Mobile Shoppers Penalize Retailer for Unsatisfactory Site, Marketing Charts, November 2011
11/30/2011 – The Innovative Mind Shift is Mission Critical
It’s not easy to book time against something that doesn’t, in the short term, return dividends. However, it is imperative for you and your team to spend time thinking creatively about what’s next on the horizon. You’re probably thinking, “Must be easy for you since your business is technology.” But I can assure you, it’s not. Just like you, I also get caught up in the daily activities of making clients happy and delivering solutions in a timely fashion. It may be my business to stay ahead of technology and innovative solutions, but it has to be yours as well.
Here are a few of my tips for carving the time and making that “mind shift.”
- Find time when it’s calm and quiet
I find it easiest to work on the creative process over the weekends and early in the morning. It is my time to be alone and really look at the big picture.
- Separate this creative time from the weekly grind
Taking time outside of a normal work week allows me to leave behind the daily demands and focus on the process of future corporate innovation.
- Achieve inner calm
Reaching a clear place of thought can be very hard in the midst of a week with customer and employee demands on your time. However, enabling this “mind shift” is mission critical in order to thrive and prosper.
Evidence of how important this is can be seen as we drive our highways past once thriving business parks that are now dormant. Polaroid, Blockbuster and Wang; we wonder where these companies might be now if they had spent more time looking towards the future and planning strategically. Once big captains of industry, they are now gone and mostly forgotten.
Our world is transforming at light speed. This is a fact that will not change. Carving time from the daily demands of your industry to achieve the “Innovative Mind Shift” is mission critical for your company’s long-term success.
11/1/2011 – What’s over the horizon: Discovery in business
Our world would be very different if Columbus and his intrepid team had maintained the theory that the world was flat and never tried sailing beyond the horizon. But because of their courage and determination, everyone the world over discovered the earth was actually round and there were more lands, people and places out there than we’d imagined.
Mapmakers rejoiced.
While Columbus’ discovery changed our world, he was following in the footsteps of explorers before him just as others would come after the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Where would your organization be if no one there had this similar drive to discover? At DROSTE, many of the innovations we’ve made have come from the questions raised by our employees and our clients. This discovery takes us down a natural path of evolution, allowing us to grow beyond the status quo.
So, who is the change agent in your office? Who’s the person asking the questions? If you’re lucky, it’s someone at C-level. If you’re really lucky it’s someone who not only likes to ask questions, but act on the answers. Because just asking isn’t enough.
Keys to Organizational Discovery
1. Curiosity
Ask the question, work the problem, brainstorm on the white board, whatever it takes
2. Development Process
Once the question has been asked and answered, it’s time to put your ideas into motion. For some of us, this is as simple as a to-do list, but for large corporations implementing major change, it means change management, including a documented process with a timeline, assignments, milestones and deadlines. (Although not necessarily a Gantt Chart. Those things can be hard to read.
3. Delegation
Now that you have a plan, it’s time to implement it. In any organization, this means identifying your strongest “doers” and handing them a checklist. The trickiest part of this is giving them enough leeway to do the job, but also offering support in case they need it.
4. Testing
Enacting a plan and following the steps is all well and good, but it’s imperative that you test it as well. Releasing a product or process without proper vetting can be disastrous whether your users are internal, external or the public at large. People will always make recommendations for the way something new could be better, but you don’t want them pointing out major bugs.
5. Launch
Okay, you’ve tested, prepped your team, prepped your market, it’s time to get this thing off your desk. And now, it’s time to launch. Be sure that, as with every other step in this process, you have a plan.
6. Follow-Up
Sometimes the easiest thing to do is make a change. It’s checking in, following up, asking questions after the fact that can be a challenge.
Your first attempt at change following a major discovery will be difficult. However, unlike Columbus, you won’t have to deal with scurvy or dwindling supplies. But even with obstacles, the act of discovery and the change it brings is worth it; for your business, for your employees and for you.
9/30/2011 – Clear Skies Ahead for the Cloud
A few weeks ago, I talked a bit about virtualization and the proliferation of virtual servers in today’s business. As I mentioned at the time, virtual servers have become a great resource and cost-saving measure for many companies, allowing them cut down on the square footage and power devoted to physical big-box servers sitting in their facilities.
The Cloud is the next step in virtualization. While people have talked about the nebulous (pun intended) Cloud for a while, it’s always been a little hard to nail down. (Okay, that’s the last one, I promise.) However, as more and more businesses, large and small, have adopted this as a solution, information has become much easier to source and interpret. Here are the key features everyone should know about the Cloud:
- It’s shared server space.
The beauty of it (and the way to save money) is that it’s a bit like crowd-sourcing your server space.
- It’s virtual.
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth noting.
- It’s big.
The amount of data you can store is astronomical. Because many companies “buy in” to the cloud, providers, like Amazon, these high-tech, high-availability resources at cheaper rates.
- It’s more stable now than it was.
It’s still vulnerable to outages just as any technology would be. However, with back-ups in place, the risk of a fatal outage is greatly reduced.
- It’s the next tech bandwagon.
Many of the big players in technology—Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM—all have Cloud solutions in place. Apple announced this summer that it too will offer an option, iCloud, starting some time this fall.
DROSTE is always on the move looking for new ways to assist our clients with the latest innovations. The use of Cloud technologies and how it might best apply to your company is what we do! We deploy our software products virtually around the world today, offering our clients a huge cost savings on software installation and maintenance.
At DROSTE, technology continues to evolve quickly and our dedicated team is eager to be at the forefront of each innovative wave.
9/15/2011 – Reducing the ‘Un’-Reducable Cost
The latest financial news from Wall Street hasn’t been very encouraging. S&P’s downgrading of America’s credit rating sent the stocks into a swan dive that seems to have stabilized, but given the current state of our economy, and Washington’s attempt to balance our nation’s budget, it appears bracing for more rough waters would not be alarmist.
As this is easily the third year of our down economy, you probably think you’ve cut costs from every conceivable column in your ledger. There couldn’t possibly be a stone you left unturned because that would mean extra revenue and you’ve been over all the accounts with a fine-tooth comb and magnifying glass.
What if I told you DROSTE has been working with clients across the country to cut costs in that one area you think you can’t—your workforce. And even better, DROSTE’s Workforce Management suite of products doesn’t hack at your workforce and labor hours with a machete; it’s more a scalpel approach, surgical and precise.
Often organizations look to human resources and their employees as the first place to reduce hours and therefore increase revenue when the economy is tight. For most companies it is by far the largest expense on their books making it a giant target. However, simply loping hours off of your projections and providing your managers with a reduction in hours, but not a reduction in sales projections won’t work. Despite the down economy, grocery stores are not necessarily less busy, but simply producing less revenue as customers opt for store brands and cheaper products to fill their carts.
So, if your number of customers remains steady, but your number of employees decreases, what does that do to your customer service standards? How about the look and feel of your store? What other corners are getting cut simply because you don’t have the hours to devote to putting bodies in your stores?
This is where DROSTE’s Workforce Management solution, a three-pronged approach that addresses Labor Forecasting, Scheduling and Time & Attendance, really shines. Using a proprietary model designed in conjunction with labor expert John F. Connolly, DROSTE works closely with clients to determine all of the tangible and intangible tasks and responsibilities their employees take on every day. Even five-minute jobs, like changing out register tape or straightening the customer service desk is included in this model, accounting for every minute that employees are on the clock.
Taking POS data into account, DROSTE builds a labor forecasting tool specific to your business that accurately projects not only the hours you absolutely need to meet your customer service standards and achieve your sales goals, but also when you need them. The art of correctly scheduling is not easily learned and can take a number of years to truly master. And often, overscheduling can be as simple as having two cashiers available to open your store as opposed to only one.
DROSTE’s modeling tool also helps managers to reevaluate their preconceptions about how they schedule. Often times, managers write schedules because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” It’s faster and far easier to follow a formula even if, over time, that formula has become outdated or incompatible with your business. By surrendering control of forecasting and scheduling to the DROSTE programs, everyone gets an objective look at how their schedules should be written. It is quite an educational experience.
Now, depending on your organizational make-up, you might have labor experts already on staff who can work with these basic principles and help to design a more accurate labor model for you to forecast and schedule from, and that’s great. However, DROSTE and John F. Connolly & Associates are ready and willing to walk you through this time-consuming process.
Clients who have implemented Workforce Management have found great success, seeing a significant decrease in their labor costs. It all comes down to ROI—Return on Investment! It’s not just a catchphrase for our clients; it’s a measurable value.
The second step in the DROSTE Workforce Management process is scheduling. Using a sophisticated Auto-Scheduling algorithm, our Labor Scheduler can automatically fill in the empty slots in your schedule keeping employee availability, time-off requests and minimum shift lengths in mind. Managers using this feature have told us they’ve cut the time it takes to write a schedule in half, freeing up those hours for the managers to be on the sales floor with customers and employees. With some upfront work and input of your store’s specific parameters, you’ll be amazed at how accurate the Auto-Scheduler can be.
Our third step is capturing Time & Attendance data to send to payroll using our DC Clock program. By interfacing directly with time clocks, DC Clock captures all of the clock in/out data in real-time, while also communicating with the Labor Scheduler to share schedules and ensure that employees are not working outside of their shifts. DC Clock really offers you and your payroll team a lot of flexibility with a robust reporting tool (many of them user-defined), as well as an easy-to-read and even easier-to-edit timecard interface.
Once you’ve seen these systems at work, it will be evident how they can positively impact your bottom line and do something that might seem impossible—save you money while maintaining your customer service standards.
8/30/2011 – ‘I’ Stands for Innovate
We have to evolve. As human beings, as individuals, as a species, as a group, as the universe, we must evolve, become more than we are this minute so that we can become more than we are in the next and so on.
Nowhere is this forward momentum more necessary than in business and, more importantly, technology. Over the past 100 years, technology has experienced a massive growth spurt, taking it from an infant learning how to crawl to a full-blown young adult, who is probably gearing up for a quarter-life crisis. Without this growth, we would still be riding in horse-drawn buggies, sending messages via a telegraph and using encyclopedias to look things up.
Instead, we are experimenting with electric and solar-powered cars, using electronic messaging as our primary method of communication and carrying around pocket-sized computers (i.e. smartphones) so that the Internet, the modern-day encyclopedia, is never further away than our back pocket.
All of this can be credited to innovation. At DROSTE, we’ve been riding the wave of innovation, often being the first in our industry to create new technology or apply previously developed tech in a new way. As our software has evolved, we’ve reinvented the way our clients handle their business, migrating manual processes to automated ones and often increasing efficiency by removing a step or three of the process.
While some companies have embraced innovation whole-heartedly, it is actually consumers who have adopted it with a vengeance. We’ve seen more and more customers willing to learn and adapt to this new method of living, conducting business and interacting at a startling rate, often surpassing business’ adoption of these new processes or hardware. In many cases, consumer use has spurred companies into action, making it impossible for them to compete in the marketplace without adopting new technology.
A primary example of this is the iPhone. Designed and marketed as a personal device, upon its release, companies realized the iPhone and its operating platform had the power to transform the way they interacted with their consumers. The mobile application, now simply called an ‘app,’ became part of our vernacular and the organizations that learned how to harness this technology first were viewed not only as innovative and forward-thinking, but as invested in their customers and the customer experience. Two elements very important for success.
As we’ve done previously with software applications, we at DROSTE have developed a way for our clients to reach their consumers on their smartphones, further engaging with the customer and enhancing their footprint in the marketplace. Our first iPhone app, launched late last year, iOrder is DROSTE’S initial step into the client-consumer realm. Allowing consumers to place their deli or bakery orders before even arriving at the store and then simply swing by to pick them up, is yet another example of innovative technology making people’s lives easier. And DROSTE is helping to bridge the gap by offering cost-effective, innovative solutions that businesses of any size can take advantage of.
How innovative is your organization? Could you be more innovative? Unlike so many other things, innovation is a state of perpetual motion—moving forward so that others can move forward with us.
8/16/2011 – The Benefits of “Almost” Being There
Cloud is the latest buzzword in the world of Information Technology, Computing and Data Warehousing. While companies as varied as IBM and Amazon have their own versions of the Cloud (and their own definitions), it appears to be a concept that’s going to stick. But before we jump feet first onto a cumulonimbus, let’s take a step back and dig a little deeper into this concept of Virtualization.
Virtual Servers are the foundation of the Cloud. Before Virtual servers we needed a box with memory and hard drives for each function we wanted to support—picture a giant CPU. We needed at least a file server, an email server and a web server. The problem was three boxes are three times more expensive than one box and even the most organized and efficient IT departments could only utilize about 10% of the capacity for each of those servers.
Also, three boxes means three times the space to store them. In addition to size, servers take a lot of energy to run and a lot of A/C to keep cool. If you were in business in the ’80s and ’90s you no doubt suffered from one or more server outages due to overheating.
Additionally, while servers can be backed up, a server crash was not a little thing. Often, in order to restore the data, the entire operating system would have to be rebuilt, all of the software reinstalled and then the data reinstated on the new box. This process could take up to three days, meaning your productivity just bottomed out while your IT guys sweated it out in a server room that’s about 95 degrees with the air conditioning on.
Enter the virtual server, a far more elegant solution and precursor to the Cloud. By using virtual servers technology, we at DROSTE were able to reduce the number of our physical servers from fourteen to three. Not only did this reduce our carbon footprint but it lowered our overhead costs as we didn’t have to maintain over a dozen machines. Additionally, in our case, a virtual server using de-duplication, can backup the 14 virtual servers in the space required by three physical servers. As the amount of data organizations and the world at large need to store grows, this type of storage efficiency will be key.
More importantly, virtual servers offer some practical solutions to common problems. For one, they allow for easier and quicker disaster recovery, often taking no more than half a day to restore from back-ups. For our company, the virtual server has served as a terrific test environment for our team and our clients as we can deploy software without affecting the client’s other third party programs or systems. And a test environment can be cloned from an existing environment quickly, allowing for faster testing and troubleshooting to identify and rectify problems.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to talk more about the Cloud and how it differs from its precursor, the virtual server. For businesses of all sizes these virtual solutions cut costs in a variety of areas, including hardware and IT. As the amount of data grows and the demand for secure storage solutions rises, the Cloud will become the Virtual Server of the 21st Century.
8/1/2011 – Apple Does Mobility Better Than Just About Anybody
A few weeks ago, Apple released its earnings statement for Q3 2011, and revealed its best quarter in the company’s 30+ years history. Additionally, Apple has sold more than 25 million iPads since the device’s debut a little over fifteen months ago. On the heels of this great news, Apple has officially released their newest operating system, Lion and is planning to launch a cloud offering this fall (iCloud).
Perhaps none of this is particularly surprising for the tech innovator, however, it is important to note such success as it heralds a significant shift in the consumer computer world. While Microsoft and other PC tablet makers’ rush to catch up to Apple and its unparalleled success with the iPad, it appears that Apple has once again established itself as the leader in quality personal and business computing equipment. Despite its higher price point, consumers have globally made the statement that they’re willing to shell out a couple hundred more bucks for quality product.
However, what may be most telling is what type of affect such high numbers of penetration will have on the business world. In what ways will businesses use iPads and iPhones in their day-to-day operations? With a lower price point and robust computing power, it would seem that an iPad might be a very cost-effective replacement for a desktop computer, allowing for greater mobility and multi-tasking. As employers and their employees are tasked to do more with less, it would seem outfitting your sales team with $500 iPads is a justifiable expense for the increased connectivity.
Retailers have long struggled with lower tech equipment that provides limited screen space and freedom of movement. A device like the iPad could be a great alternative to handheld scanning/inventory guns: the batteries last longer, the computing power is greater and the screen is big enough for you to see everything you need. As current handheld devices continue to become outdated, the iPad may become the next go-to warehouse device.
Currently at DROSTE, we’re in the process of determining how this new technology might be incorporated into our offerings. We recently met with a time clock maker that has a biometric clock with a 10-inch touch screen interface. Can you imagine how useful that could be? Companies could use the devices to deliver messages to far-flung employees, create an onscreen interface for employees to view their schedules or request time off and even review company events or announcements. We are still exploring all the possibilities such new technology offers, but it is an exciting time to work in technology. I’m sure Steve Jobs would agree.
Source: Apple Sells 9 Million iPads & 20 Million iPhones in Third Quarter, Mashable, July 20, 2011
7/1/2011 – It’s time for Ma and Pop to innovate
Considering it’s summer and that’s normally a slow season for many businesses, there has been a ton of news in the past few weeks regarding the grocery industry. Perhaps the most shocking prediction is a report from Nielsen last week stating that online grocery shopping will more than double by 2014.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Online purchases of consumer packaged
goods from disposable diapers to processed food will more than double
to $25 billion by 2014, information and measurement company Nielsen
said on Monday.
(Nielsen sees Web grocery growth, plans new service, June 20, 2011)
In addition there was another article published in the June 27th issue of Supermarket News talking about how the newer generation of grocery shopper, namely Generation Y, may soon start to substitute the brick and mortar shopping experience for a virtual one. (A Race to Sell Younger Generations on Stores, Supermarket News, June 27, 2011)
Both of these articles appear to be stalwart warnings for grocery stores, and independent chains will probably be the hardest hit. However, I’m not sure if I totally buy the idea that these younger generations will completely forego a physical shopping experience for a digital one. I mean, how exactly do a squeeze a melon via the Internet?
However, I believe these articles should serve as a call to action for these grocers. In order to capture the younger generation and remain viable grocery stores will need to innovate. Things like iPhone apps—similar to Droste’s Deli & Bakery Ordering app, iOrder—as well as a more active in-store experience, may help to keep this audience engaged. As with all retail outlets that are seeing a shift in business from in-store to online, the key is to provide a unique shopping experience different from the virtual one. This doesn’t simply mean having friendly store associates though.
The younger generation isn’t quite as enamored with asking employees for help when shopping. They are looking for tools that can aid them in their buying and allow them to get in and out quickly. This is where things like iOrder, apps that provide aisle numbers for items and digital coupons come into play. Do you have any of those? It might be time to invest in at least one.
Online grocery shopping will grow as Nielsen has predicted. But I’m not 100 percent sure that it will render grocery stores obsolete. And if this news is what inspires the grocery industry to innovate, then I’m all for it.
Take care until my next post.
Tom.
6/7/11 – Summer is here, bring on the sun!
Despite its unerring consistency, every year when summer arrives, I’m always caught a little off guard. And this year, with our temperatures here in the Northeast jumping from cold to 90 in the span of a day, it seemed an even more surprising turn.
But, I’m glad the season has changed. The warmer weather means getting out of the house, soaking up some Vitamin D and taking trips to discuss the cool things happening at Droste. Next month, Kathy and I will be taking a trip to the west coast to discuss a great opportunity for our Workforce Lite product. I can’t spill too many details yet, but we’re so excited that I had to share something. We’ll keep you posted.
I suppose the most notable thing about June is that Kathy and I will be traveling “across the Pond” for a little over two weeks. We’re taking our first vacation in over three years with my sister and her husband to Scotland, England and Ireland. Kathy and I also managed to squeeze in a quick business meeting with a new vendor who is headquartered on England’s southern shore. Otherwise, we’ll be spending our time running through London in the early hours when the city is still asleep, sampling the fine British and Irish cuisine and I might even play a little golf, at a local course you may have heard of – St. Andrews.
I hope your start to summer is prosperous and exciting. As you head out to the pool or the beach, don’t forget your sunblock!
Take care until my next post,
Tom.