Jamie: I’ve worked for Retail Assist for 3 and half years, the first two as a Senior Analyst Developer and in the last 18 months as the .Net Development Team Leader.

Ellie: Would you be able to describe a typical day at work for you at Retail Assist? I know that previously people have found this difficult to do!

Jamie: Like all the other ‘Day in the life of’ interviewees I’d say that there is no such thing as a typical day here. I find that I tend to get involved in lots areas that are not totally development focused. However, the main focus of my role is to work with the .Net team delivering quality Merret developments.

This task normally includes sitting down with each developer and working through any issues that they may be having with their development. I will normally help them work through any issues that they may have and communicate anything that may have an impact to the delivery schedule.

I am still hands on and normally have various developments that I need to work on during my week. They are fairly mixed and vary from simple to complex changes.

Another key part of role is to get involved in analysing new developments that are due. This will involve a key meeting with the developer and head of development in which we will sit down and analyse the change, making sure that all the requirements for the change are met, what the impact of the changes are and if there any areas that require further analysis or technical specs.

Ellie: So if you had to pick one thing that you enjoyed most about your job, what would that be?

Jamie: I don’t think that I can pinpoint one thing that I enjoy most about my job, I think it’s a combination of various elements but I have to say it’s the guys I work with on a daily basis. I have a great group of guys who all work very hard but along the way we try and have fun

I also think we are quite lucky to have a great set of Merret customers and working with them is always pleasure.

Ellie: And what about the thing that you find most challenging?

Jamie: It has to be the go-live week and implementation of Merret into new customers. It’s very much like rehearsing for a show for 6 months. While you have done everything you can in preparation there are always some last minute nerves.

Ellie: Last but not least, I’m interested to hear what previous experiences helped to prepare you for your role?

Jamie: Prior to working for Retail Assist, I ran a small IT company in the midlands supporting servers, computers, developing web sites and software to make their lives a bit easier. I took a lot of experiences from that. However, I spent a lot of time working with end users and you get a real insight into what’s important to them. As a developer you can get carried away with the technical details of the change and lose sight of actual ‘user requirement’.

Ellie: Great thanks for taking part Jamie. For readers wanting more information about our Merret supply chain solution, please visit our website, dedicated twitter feed, or feel free to post your questions below.

James: Hi Alex, the real time monitoring solution came about as one of our customers was just making the switch to new Retail-J software across their store estate. We quickly ran into issues with data flows between the estate manager/central system and the store’s tills and back office devices. This was largely caused by some extensive reporting being done on the Estate Manager database; the running of these reports caused a slow down in the data processing; eventually this got so bad that the stores ended up manually trading. We found ourselves needing to get some kind of instant feedback to determine if the actions we were taking were beneficial and having the desired effect. Fundamentally, the Retail-J system is all about data flow between devices; when that breaks down the data processing gets backed up, with various knock on effects including till systems slowing down to the point of tills not being able to trade and EFT settlement files not sent overnight.

Alex: What does the solution allow the retailer to do?

James: The real-time monitoring solution, allows seemingly small problems to be pro-actively picked up and actions taken before they become real show-stoppers. For example, spotting that a database has grown to a point that it’s nearly out of space enables us to take action and extend the database before that starts giving errors. The primary monitor display gives an overview of the health of the store estate, but one can also drill down to store and till level. We have since expanded the solution to monitor database sizes, OLA server status, EFT Settlement submission, PLU propagation, etc.

Alex: And how do problems get picked up?

James: Generally, real-time monitoring is achieved through a summary wall display showing a red/amber/green state of the key parameters of the system. Depending on the customer, we set sensible thresholds that give an amber alert or a red alert if something is going wrong. Optionally, if a red alert is encountered, a sound alert can also be used to attract attention. At Retail Assist, we monitor customer estates through our 24 hour operations centre and the Help Desk.

Alex: An important question is what benefits have been achieved thanks to the solution?

James: The key benefit is to minimise the amount of downtime by nipping tiny problems in the bud before they become real issues. Also when an unexpected major failure does occur (e.g. central database failure) then it enables support staff to quickly assess where the issue is and likely impact on all areas of the business. Also, by using the summary page to highlight a potential problem in a particular area or store, and then having the ability to drill down to till level, the Help Desk can pre-empt problems with individual tills – sometimes before the store staff even know they have a problem!

Alex: That’s great, so on a wider scale, what have been the overall operational benefits to the retailer?

James: I think fundamentally, if Retail Assist can keep the tills working quickly and efficiently it means that retailers can keep the queues down in store which in turn keeps the money coming in.

Alex: Lovely, thank you James. If any readers have a question about this subject, please post it below. You can also download a podcast on real time monitoring of the till estate on our website.

Paul: I started in December of 2009, so two and a half years.

Ellie: I know that the project work can be very varied, but would you be able to describe a typical day at work for you at Retail Assist?

Paul: I would typically spend 50% of my time out on customer site – recently I have worked from the Jacques Vert Group Head Office – and the other 50% based at the Application Centre in Northampton. A day out of the office would often involve a couple of hours travel to London from my home in Northampton ready for a 9.30am start facilitating a workshop on Merret implementation or development. Whilst on site there is usually time for a lunch break and to catch up on emails regarding the current projects I am managing.

Most clients would want to get full value from your time on site so you can expect to field a wide range of questions about the Merret application or project progress. Where my knowledge of the application is lacking then these questions need to be passed on to the Retail Analysts in Northampton and followed up when I am next back in the office.

During a large Merret implementation the customer’s office becomes something of a home from home so the working day would typically end at around 5.30pm followed by the return trip to Northampton.

Ellie: What do you enjoy most about your role at Retail Assist?

Paul: I like the variety of working with different retail clients. Having spent a number of years on the other side of the fence as an IT Manager for a retail business it is interesting to see how different organisations operate.

Ellie: That is interesting, so what aspects of your job do you find most challenging?

Paul: As with any project based role there will be times when resources or time are in short supply but deadlines still have to be met. This situation is a bit of a double edged sword as it is certainly the most challenging part of the job but once you overcome the issue it is also one of the reasons you keep coming back for more!

Ellie: Finally, what previous experiences helped prepare you for your current job – I know you’ve already touched upon ‘working on the other side of the fence’?

Paul: Whilst working in my previous role as an IT manager I managed a number of different implementations of retail systems ranging from Merchandising, Warehousing, EPoS and Finance. This experience along with my view of life from the client side has I believe been of most help in my current role.

Ellie: Great, thank you Paul. If anybody reading this would like more information about Projects at Retail Assist, please visit our website or email info@retail-assist.co.uk.

1)      Always have complete stock visibility: nothing else matters without the ability to see what is in stock and where it is.

Our Chief Executive Officer of Managed Services Dan Smith outlined the dangers of incorrect sales information in today’s multichannel world, where this is utilised and fed between the retailer’s website, concessions and ‘bricks and mortar’ stores here. (Paragraph 3)

2)      Be clear on the customer proposition to ensure all processes are focused on achieving the right goals.

Our Head of Multichannel Solutions Andy Tudor touched upon the fact that a retailer’s retail proposition, product quality, support services and brand identity should be consistent across each channel here. (Paragraph 5).

3)      Integrate multichannel systems – all channels are linked via the customer, so an organisation must link them in the back-office as well.

Our Executive Chairman Alan Morris stressed the importance of having an integrated solution with a single database, utilised by a number of IT systems here. (Paragraph 2).

4)      Promote click and collect: this gains more value from customers but requires physical channel integration.

Our Head of Marketing Alex Ievins proposed that retailers could encourage click and collect sales through the use of instant chat facilities on their website here. (Paragraph 3).

5)      Manage ranges: while it is easy to fill space on a website, fulfilment of an ‘endless aisle’ can be problematic.

Our IT Business Development Manager Frances Thomas talked about how IT should support product merchandising here.  (Paragraph 3).

6)      Build partnerships across the supply chain to make processes easier to execute.

Our Chief Executive Officer of Managed Services Dan Smith gave his thoughts on choosing an outsourcing partner, and how shared services could be more consistent and cost effective here. (Paragraph 3).

7)      Prioritise forecasting and planning.

Our Chief Executive Officer of Merret Nigel Illingworth suggested selecting IT systems which support planning, budgeting and forecasting here. (Point 6).

8)      Keep similar stock together – don’t split items by channel, it distorts visibility of stock levels and lowers agility.

Our Executive Chairman Alan Morris discussed the fact that in the past, most of the goods arriving at the retail warehouse were allocated to high street shops, with a proportion held back for replenishment, but that now, sales across all channels must be fulfilled by a single stock pool here. (Paragraph 5).

9)      One order equals one delivery: make sure that an order, regardless of how many items it has, is fulfilled as one delivery. It is ultimately cheaper and better for the customer.

I expressed the opinion that the overall delivery experience I was given as a customer radically affects my overall view of a retailer and that once I find a vendor who processes deliveries well, I’m likely to order from them again here. (Point 4).

10)  Maintain price consistency – unless your goal is to drive customers to one channel or another, prices should be kept consistent.

Our Head of Multichannel Solutions Andy Tudor insisted that potential delivery costs via online and catalogue channels need to be taken into consideration when considering price consistency here.  (Paragraph 5).

Do you agree with the above tips, or do you have some of your own? Please post your comments below, or email info@retail-assist.co.uk.

In an age where retailers are developing and optimising shopping channels based upon the available technologies, we wanted to ask shoppers whether they were actually using all of the channels available to them, whether they liked these channels and had previously used them to purchase goods.

The results were somewhat surprising to me. Whilst we interviewed a wide demographic of ages and sexes, the majority of shoppers suggested they still preferred to carry out most of their purchasing on the high street. The reasoning behind this was that shopping was a ‘day out’. People also liked to feel and see the clothing, and try it on before they bought it. Many felt that with the internet or other channels this experience was lost.

This preference contradicts the high number of store closures that have been announced of late and the thinking by some retailers that there has been a reduction in the need for so many stores on the high street. However the responses that we got were of course influenced by the fact that we were interviewing people who were already out on the high street.

Out of those who did like to shop online the majority of people stated they preferred to use their PC. For others who owned smartphones and tablet devices, the latter was the preferred option, mainly because of the larger screen size. It was surprising that many interviewees had mobile phones which lacked browsing and therefore purchasing capability. One person also stated that she had security fears regarding using her mobile to purchase online.

When asked if they would use their mobile to purchase goods in future, some interviewees stated that this wouldn’t be a channel they would use, but others said that they might if they had the technology readily available. There were of course some people who felt totally at ease with shopping via their mobiles; the Amazon app was mentioned several times as a favourite purchasing method, for people who had shopped via the mobile channel already.

The video provided some interesting findings that I would have not necessarily expected when everything I read in retail publications or hear at industry events suggest a movement away from the high street. What are your thoughts on this, and do you agree with the views of the high street shoppers that we interviewed?

Firstly, I predict that we will see some fairly significant trials of mobile payments over the next twelve months. This will move a step further forward than mobile optimised websites and mobile apps, and will be about joining up different channels. This involves enabling a customer to start researching a purchase on their mobile and perhaps coming into store and completing the purchase on their phone as well.

I understand that there are plans for Oyster cards to be replaced by NFC payments, which is using a debit or credit card (that will ultimately evolve into using mobile phones with NFC chips within them) to enable the London Underground to take a payment. I think as we start to see that type of technology implemented on a wide scale within the public sector, and it becomes commonplace, people will become accustomed to using the technology. Customers will therefore be less resistant to utilising that type of solution within a retail environment.

Another prediction is that there could be a movement away from fixed tills over the coming year, and again we might start to see further trials in that area. We’ve already started to witness tablet trials on quite a widespread basis, and as platforms such as Windows 8 start to come out, we may see some real challenges to the Apple monopoly. Tablets can give an added level of personal interaction with the customer when they come into store. Having a one on one experience with the customer is particularly important for luxury brands, where the price point on individual products or the overall basket is high.

I believe that over the coming year social networking practices will be widely introduced within the workplace. Social networking currently gives the retailer the opportunity to understand more about their customer. In extreme examples we’ve already seen the executive boards at certain retailers being able to respond to Twitter feeds and Facebook comments, and embracing social networking at a senior level. At an operational level we also see various retailers studying live Twitter streams to see how people are reacting to new product launches.

However I also predict that social networking practices will be introduced within the internal culture of retail organisations themselves. In the case of bricks and mortar retailers I think that social networking technologies can underpin a communications strategy, for example between the Head Office and the store estate. This is because social media utilises a type of technology that employees are already familiar with, as it’s becoming commonplace within their own personal lives.

Finally, another exciting area to explore, which we will see expansion in is international websites. I think we’re going to start to witness true international trade as dedicated foreign language websites break down barriers to this. As a customer you can be logged on anywhere in the World and shop from any websites that you want to, using your own currency.

Do you agree with the above predictions regarding the adoption of omni-channel, or do you have some of your own? Please post your comments below or email info@retail-assist.co.uk.

My name is Sawan Patel, I’m currently 18 years old and from Leicester. I attend the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy at Solihull College in Birmingham. This is a unique Level 3 BTEC Course (in enterprise and entrepreneurship). As a student there, I am required to set up and run my own micro business. Throughout this course, I am learning the fundamental skills for setting up and running a successful business.

Recently, the time came to finding a work placement, where I would be in charge of a problem focused task in a business environment. Luckily for me, my Dad used to work at Retail Assist so he put me in contact with Rae (Head of HR). She kindly welcomed me for a two week work placement in Marketing.

I started on the 19^th March, I hopped off the train from Leicester early and somehow I managed to get lost in Nottingham so I arrived a couple of minutes late (bad first impression or what?) Eventually I found The Hub and raced up to 6^th floor. As soon as I walked through the main door, I was amazed at how nice the office was. I was taken into a room and I went through a brief introduction with Alaine (HR Administrator). I then met Alex (Head of Marketing) and Ellie (Communications Executive). Truthfully, I struggled with remembering the names at first, but, eventually I managed.

I went through an intro to Retail Assist with Alex and she explained what the company does, what products they sell, the client base and so on. I furthered my understanding by looking at the main website. Alex produced a document of activities that she had planned for me over the next two weeks.

I started off with doing a little bit of SEO keyword analysis, for those of you who don’t know what that is; don’t worry, nor did I. It’s basically words that websites have that help rank the page for search engines. This includes a title, description and keywords. So I began searching for keywords that Retail Assist could use to optimize their search engine ranking.

The second day, I spent a couple hours assisting Alex and Ellie with a film project in Nottingham town centre. Ellie and I were trying to reel in shoppers to be interviewed by Alex. It sounds easy, but you should have seen how many people said no even though it was literally a 10/15 second interview! Overall, it was a fun day out and the video turned out great (apart from the scene where you see me slightly trip into a store – how embarrassing).

Over the next few days I was involved in a number of projects, an important one I was responsible for was creating a company profile for Sales Manager Roger. One thing I struggled with was when I had to pick the phone up and enquire about something. It was such a relief that Alaine was sat opposite me because she gave me tips and advice on how to improve my telephone skills. Although these still aren’t perfect, they have improved since being at Retail Assist.

Another project I was involved with was marketing via Social Media. For me this was really interesting (not because I love Facebook in case you’re wondering) but because I helped the team with picture editing, posting statuses, giving suggestions etc.

Last but not least, Alex asked me if I could help find a fine dining restaurant in London for a client event including private dining for 25. She told me to look for top rated restaurants (I thought wow, I hope I’m invited!). I really underestimated how hard this task would be. I had to ring round and research and spreadsheet a document with restaurants that fitted all the criteria.

Luckily, I got a chance to meet most of the Directors at Retail Assist. It was amazing to see how down to earth they all are. To sum up my experience at Retail Assist (before I bore you guys to sleep), I think it is an amazing company to work at and it was a pleasure to meet such kind and helpful staff. I really have learnt a lot and I would find it hard to summarize all of it here on the blog. I thank everybody at Retail Assist for welcoming me and being so hospitable, it was a great experience.

By Louise Tillotson

Now more than ever, local businesses and their customers need to work together to help tackle the nation’s deficit at a local, actionable level. Although grass-roots activity may seem small in the context of global macroeconomics, it can help to create a step change across the nation when individuals and communities start to focus on buying local and supporting local trade, rather than buying foreign imports.

Local Trade – the Benefits

Supporting local trade has many benefits. It helps to prop up businesses within an area and keeps money flowing within domestic economies. It means that products have a lower carbon footprint and that items are traceable to their origins.

In the case of food production, buying local means fresher, cheaper and often more nutritious food. Local trade within many regions can reduce the need for foreign imports and cut the country’s spend abroad. Local businesses have as much a role as local individuals. They can purchase their raw goods and component materials from local wholesalers and use local staff and trading partners, for example.

Sustainable Business

This activity helps to support sustainable business models, which don’t cut off the business world or shun business finance from external sources, but make use of local resources in a sustainable way. This can lead to an investment in local people through staffing at fair wages.

Buy-Local Campaigns

Consumer action can play a powerful role in this trend – especially if a ‘buy-local’ policy is promoted and adopted within a particular geographical region. Schemes are in place across many regions worldwide and the benefits are often undeniable.

Some UK towns, such as Bristol and Brixton, have taken this policy one step further with the introduction of a local currency – essentially a voucher worth the equivalent in Sterling and used to buy goods from independent retailers within the town. Retailers in turn are encouraged to use this currency to pay for their stock and services, thus keeping the money circulating.

With minimal local marketing and advertising, combined with support from local PR sources such as trade press and regional media, consumer groups and businesses can come together to positively influence trading patterns. They can ensure that more commerce remains local, boosting the domestic economy and slowly removing the reliance on foreign imports.

About the Author

Louise is a financial writer for MoneySupermarket. Her fields of expertise are personal and business finance, retail psychology and parenting.

About Guest Blogs

The views expressed in guest blogs are not necessarily representative of those held by Retail Assist Ltd, but are opinions that we feel are relevant to the current issues in the Retail and / or IT industries. If you would be interested in writing a guest post to appear on the Retail Assist blog, please take a look at our guidelines.

A male acquaintance of mine (let’s call him A for the sake of anonymity) is 25, so falls into the lower end of the above age bracket. Living in a small town, he rarely visits clothes shops, and has instead purchased most of his clothes online ever since he started buying them for himself. Due to this, I discovered on a recent shopping trip with A that he was unaware of many of the traditional conventions of bricks and mortar stores, in the same way that my 80 year old grandmother is unaware of the process involved in buying clothes via an ecommerce website.

During the shopping trip in question, A was looking for an outfit for a specific occasion, I dragged him to a busy town centre to track this down. A was reluctant to try anything on before buying it, as this is obviously something he is not used to doing when shopping online. Being bossy however, I suggested that he may as well, as we had plenty of time and it would reduce the likelihood of somebody having to return the items at a later date because the fit wasn’t right.

Willing to give this new experience a try, A picked up more clothes than he actually needed and took them into the changing room. When A came out of said changing room and was asked by a shop assistant whether the items were any good, he replied “yes”. I was surprised by this, but assumed that he had fallen in love with the items so wanted to buy them all. When questioned however, A said that he didn’t want to purchase all of the clothes that he was carrying. When I enquired why he hadn’t given the unwanted items back to the shop assistant at the entrance to the changing room when prompted to; A looked completely baffled. Apparently he was unaware that this was standard practice in clothes shops, and assumed that if he didn’t want something he had tried on, he was expected to go and put it back in the exact spot where he had found it.

When queuing up to buy a garment that he did want, A began to look agitated, and suggested that we go and line up elsewhere. Again, I wasn’t sure of the reason for this, as the queue wasn’t very long, so I thought that maybe there was somebody at the counter who A wanted to avoid. I discretely asked if this was the case, and A said no – it was because that he had seen a sign above the till saying “cash desk”, and he wanted to use his credit card to make the purchase. I tried to explain that the words “cash desk” were just another way of saying “till”. However in some ways A’s assumption made sense – when buying online, the ways in which you can pay are maybe better signposted than they are in store.

In recent months, there has been much hype about online channels killing off the high street. However the fact that I am roughly the same age as A, yet found his shopping behaviour highly unusual, means that preferred purchasing channels are not necessarily linked with age. If it was left solely up to A, traditional high street fashion retail might die out, but it’s not. I used the example of my own grandmother earlier; however the ‘silver surfer’ phenomenon proves that other people of her age are embracing newer methods of shopping.

Do you conform to gender or age stereotypes with your attitude towards retail therapy, or do you break the mould? Please feel free to post your comments below or email info@retail-assist.co.uk …I think A deserves a gift after being analysed like a lab rat in this article, so I’d better start shopping!

Ellie: I never thought I’d be saying this in a professional capacity, but I’m here today to interview my Mum, Val Cook, for the Retail Assist blog! With Mother’s Day coming up, I was intrigued to learn more about what the retail environment was like in the 1970s, when my Mum was in her 20s, like I am now. Mum, what would you say are the main differences between shopping now and shopping when you were my age?

Val: The main difference is the huge choice available now, and clothes being much more affordable. Innovative fashion for our age group was mostly available in London and was out of our price range. I was fortunate in having friends who were fashion and textiles student at Nottingham Art College. So we created our own styles customising retro clothes and accessories available locally both in specialist shops like Pennyfeathers selling 1930s and 40s clothes, and also hunting down bargains in jumble sales for interesting buttons or pieces of old lace. For work though we had to wear more formal clothes – for example women were not allowed to wear trousers to the office; and men had to wear ties and smart trousers / jackets or suits. So there was a huge difference to how we looked out of work!

Ellie: Obviously there was no such thing as online shopping back in the 1970s, do you think developments such as this have made life easier for working people, or have they simply resulted in new problems such as failed deliveries?

Val: The nearest I had to online was buying clothes from my mum’s catalogues, but then the styles were more suited to the 1950s than the 1970s! So I think the development of online shopping has made life easier, both for working people and for people who live in more rural areas, who do not have regular access to a large city like Nottingham. I agree that deliveries can be a problem, particularly if you are out all day and miss the delivery and then have to go to the postal depot to collect your parcel! Nowadays to save me time spending hours in town, I sometimes like to browse my favourite shops on the internet if I am thinking of buying a particular item in a specific colour and size, and then order online to collect at my local branch.

Ellie: Do you think that standards of customer service have improved or deteriorated over the years, or have they remained about the same?

Val: I think that standards of customer service have definitely improved over the years. Probably this is because there is more competition as customers have so much more choice, but also I think that in the larger outlets, customer service training for retail staff has improved. Also it is now much easier to return goods both in-store and online.

Ellie: You read a lot these days about multiples meaning that the UK High Streets are less diverse than they were in the 1970s and independent retailers suffering as a result. Would you agree that High Streets are more standardised and dull now than they were when you were in your 20s?

Val: Yes I would agree that high streets are possibly more boring nowadays – but maybe they deliver exactly what the majority of customers want. Styles for younger people seem to be more standardised – wearing sportswear for example and I think that wearing recognisable labels has become more attractive to all age groups. Maybe the difference is that when I was young we didn’t want to look like our parents, but now parents want to wear the same clothes as young people. In the late 1960s and early 1970s there were a couple of larger stores – Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge that opened in Nottingham, as well as several small boutiques selling specialist designs. Some of these smaller boutique owners and designers went on to become big names – like Paul Smith, and other boutiques such as G-Force were set up by design graduates from the art college.

Ellie: Unfortunately, there have been many retail casualties and administrations since the 1970s. If you could bring one shop or brand that is no longer around back to life, what would it be?

Val: Well it would have to be Biba! Although I understand that the brand has been re-launched, I’ll never forget visiting the Biba store in London, it wasn’t just the clothes that were the attraction, but also the atmosphere, it was like walking into an Eastern Bazaar with unusual masks, and furniture, drapes, all so different to any shop I had ever seen. There was a catalogue which I brought home, (I wish I still had it as the illustrations were incredible) and ordered a wonderful dusky pink trouser suit and some make-up. Soon after a boutique called Bus Stop opened on the Poultry in Nottingham, and it was heavily Biba influenced – so I was happy.

Ellie: Great, thank you for answering my questions Mum. Your answers have given me an interesting insight into how your experience of retail in the 1970s was different to my experiences today. On behalf of everybody here at Retail Assist, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of the readers of the blog who are Mothers themselves, or who are blessed with a lovely Mum, a Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday.