Mens Et Opera - Reloaded

  Paul Greenberg is an inspiring and committed individual. He is stimulating the retail industry in Australia is such a strong direction, it would deserve him a trophy. For example, rounding up a crew of fifty people from various industries and backgrounds on a bus tour was a great achievement. I was part of the crew in Melborune and I literally enjoyed the opportunity to see how StarTrack , Gabby Leibovich and Mike Wilson are running their businesses. I must admit that I was moved by seeing how ideas - often simple ones - translated into reality become source of prosperity, self-fulfillment, and common good. This brings me at once to the very point I'd like to make. I am persuaded that each person is involved in a life-task of human flourishing to realize in community with others. I have drawn this idea from Aristotle and the Christian tradition, more specifically from St. Thomas Aquinas. Regardless, I firmly believe that every man has a sense of calling that...

Have you researched into PIM? Have your team members got their head around it? Are they proudly saying that they now know it? Bullshit. Just to further rock your and theirs convictions, here are three bullets to knock you out: PIM is business transformation enabled by technology. PIM will force you to think about WHY you are in your business in the first place. PIM is not a technology project that the business has to swallow. That's right - PIM will engage your teams to work collaboratively, smoothly, with no inefficiencies, and no excuse for mediocre results. Under-performers will be ousted. Bitter pill, I know. Managers will fight hard not to reduce staff, even if there are obvious inefficiencies. But they will lose. Piece of advice: set out to change your mindset and for those who have yet to recognise the potential of PIM for driving your business. You need patience, bravery, and fortitude. Good luck (and I mean it). Picture Source: http://eaonpritchard.blogs...

The FCB quadrant emerged from the US agency Foote, Cone and Belding (FCB) in the 1970s. It was meant to support direct advertising’s creative strategy as it clarifies how consumers approach the buying process for different products. The diagram below visualizes the two levels of consumer involvement, namely, the extent of thinking (rational and functional considerations) versus feeling (emotions) in the consumer’s decision-making. What’s all this to do with PIM? Marketers and Sales responsible to launch product campaigns, equipped with the FCB model, will generally tap into analyses of consumer–product relationships and develop appropriate promotional strategies. Ideally, they have PIM processes and tools in place to source the relevant product information, enrich it, and publish it to targeted consumer’s touch points. The enrichment phase is crucial here. A (proper) PIM would offer capabilities to enhance and/or add further relevant information to products to make them commercia...

Interesting article in Forbes titled " Retail in Crisis: "These are the changes brick-and-mortar stores must take ". It is a guest post by Brian K. Walker, VP at Hybris. I knew this article was fun to read. I really like it and I think Brian hammers home many points. The one I love is his bashing of the omnichannel concept (he wouldn't say that he was engaged in a bashing exercise though :-).  I recently blogged on a related topic: It's the customer, stupid! . Two excerpts that resonate greatly. The problem is that the term “omnichannel” still contains the word “channel.” For many retailers this means trying to slide by with in-store pick-up of online orders, or taking returns in-store of orders customers placed via the Web. However, the business case extends well beyond these tactical initiatives to satisfy basic customer needs—increasing the lifetime value of customers, delivering faster inventory turns in-store and creating higher margins through red...

Confronted with and discomforted by the enormous knowledge gap in the current Australia retail industry, my missionary spirit is urged to share a few angelical insights and resources to those who are battling against the business of living with the marketing materials from vendors, analysts, and consultants J There you are: PIM is a business capability to ensure that organizations collaboratively author, enrich, and distribute accurate, consistent, and validated product information across all the distribution points.   This is the best I can do with less than 25 words ;-) but it isn't marketing-friendly, is it? It does give you a lot to think about though (if you are an inquiring spirit). More assistance comes from the pieces linked below. Why Product Information Management Top 10 reasons to use Product MDM The easiest ROI for Product MDM Who Needs Product Master Data Management? ProductInformation Management: Definition, Purpose, and Offering There’s a l...

An IBM study found that 90% of customers want better personalisation, and are willing to spend 20 minutes to set up their information to help retailers give them a better experience. However, the same study discovered that less than a third of retailers are able to make the most of this. Interestingly, a recent survey conducted by Capgemini reveals a thorny truth that many Australian retailers won’t like to hear. Few excerpts: Relationship building (Relational aspects) is the most under-utilised dimension. The potential for generating customer intimacy and brand loyalty is currently unexploited by Australian retailers and has created a Relational Gap. The true power of relational digital commerce lies in combining established web personalisation techniques with advanced big data analytics to create effective, scalable solutions. Since it is impossible to scale a business model that relies on one-to-one human contact, digital mass personalisation aims to both individua...

The digital age is here to stay and it’s making our world more hybrid than ever.  The line between digital and physical are being blurred by technology. After almost a couple of decades, you’d think that online would have relegated to the store to a secondary experience.  That’s not the case, not by a long shot.  Online AND Offline Granted, since its inception, eCommerce sales growth has been heady and will continue to be. However, the same technology that permits such success is transforming bricks and mortars inside out. To understand this, you need look no further than Burberry stores, whose retail model is becoming a gold standard for fashion retailers. To illustrate: clothing in the store is embedded with chips which can be read by screens and mirrors using radio-frequency identification technology. When a customer walks into a changing room holding a jacket, one of the mirrors might respond by turning into a screen showing images of how it was worn on the cat...

We are all used to the typical consulting lingo. Personally, I am in the process of a healthy recovery :-) but nobody takes offense. It shows an effort to get to the point quickly. Unfortunately it fails 99% of the time (see here if you want to learn more :-). On the same note, but hopefully more effectively, there's a large vocabulary being developed around "data"- often unwittingly - that is worth looking at. Take this nice piece from Forbes . The key thing here is that data is seen as the new oil (or black gold for that matter). Arguably, data is becoming a new currency and the effort to put a "value" on data is remarkable (and probably necessary. We will return on this concept at some point in the near future). But is it really? Interestingly, as Gary Burnison  pointed out , "more data does not mean the right information. It just means more information." And this is a good point if you consider that the value of data resides more in its extrins...

I am heavily in pre-sales mode at the moment, but before long I will be writing up few installments of the role MDM in relation to the various areas affected or enabled by it.  In the meantime, let me share few links to blogs that I regularly read:. Like it or not, Gartner is a required-stop for all the MDM stuff. I follow Andrew White very keenly.  If you are a data quality wanna-be expert don't miss out on Mr Henrik Liliendahl Sorensen .  David Loshin is the author of a fine book (which I highly recommend. See also the companion web site here ). He is president of Knowledge Integrity Inc., a consulting company specializing in intelligent information managements solutions. His short and to the point essay " Busting 7 Myths about Master Data Management " is worth your attention. Although with a broader approach in mind, Loraine Lawson comments are always an excellent perspective. If you don't know about the MDM Institute, you should. Find out ...

Resquiescat in pace ‏. We had a chance to comment on this great scientist here