Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) Experts

About a year ago I made a conscious decision to improve my response time. My inbox was filling up with anywhere from 12 to 20 e-mails per hour and my voicemail was filling up regularly, as I don’t answer the phone while in meetings out of consideration to my fellow participants. (Speaking of meetings, they were taking up so much time that rather than accomplishing things they just created more “to do” items for my “pending items” list.) It got to the point where it was taking me far too long to reply to anyone and getting through to me directly was too much of a hassle.

Three in four retail associates and managers said they provide a better in-store customer experience when equipped with the latest mobile technologies, according to Motorola Solutions' annual Holiday Shopping Survey. It also found that shoppers echoed a similar sentiment as more than two-thirds (67 percent) of surveyed shoppers reported heightened satisfaction with retailers where in-store associates utilized the latest technologies to assist in the shopping experience.

There's more to being a boss than just telling people what to do. It's about building a rapport and fostering a real relationship with your employees, so that you trust each other and can get things done.

Unfortunately, many managers don't care about their employees' morale, and spur them on by any means necessary. They fail to realize that it all has an impact on how well your company runs, and can have a major impact on your productivity, ability to retain talent and your bottom line.

Despite a backdrop of challenging economic conditions and ever-persistent thieves — whether dishonest employees or shoplifters — retailers are maintaining a steady pattern of shrink reduction.

As retailers have identified effective loss prevention initiatives and LP executives have gained a louder voice in promoting solutions, overall losses as a percentage of sales have remained close to historic lows, according to Richard Hollinger, professor in the department of sociology and criminology and law at the University of Florida.

By the time you are reading this article which was written 6-10 days ago, everything that I am writing about might have changed. Of course I am exaggerating a little bit but that is how fast the world of mobile commerce, also known as m-commerce, changes. Just when you think you have a handle on the subject, something new is introduced. Let me give you the current and accepted concepts that are changing the face of retailing via our smart phones.

Which sells the best, fresh new merchandise received just in time for the upcoming season, or inventory left over from last year that you didn't clear out because you had a complete run of sizes that you thought you could sell during the next season? New goods always trump old merchandise when it comes down to what will sell the fastest. The longer an item remains on the floor unsold, the more it costs you -not only in real dollars, but in opportunity costs.

Everyone knows you can't have a business without customers. However, one of the worst mistakes any business can make is focusing its marketing efforts on attracting new clients while neglecting past and current customers. Studies have shown that the cost of acquiring a new customer is far greater than what it costs to generate business from an existing client.

As retailers, we deal with many different personality types on a daily basis. Of course each customer is unique, but there is universal agreement that there are four basic personality types. These are the main customer personalities specific to the retail environment.

The objective of this white paper is to review various aspects of retail financial management and to draw important lessons for small and mid-size retailers. The paper addresses a wide range of topics that impact a retailer’s financial success. Many of these are common to retailers of all sizes, but some are specific to mid to small tier businesses and many cautionary notes are given.

It is a fact that for almost all retailers inventory is the single largest asset on the balance sheet. Yet, despite all the improvements in technology over the past twenty five years, inventory continues to be the least productive asset for most retailers.

Consumers increasingly are taking control of the retail environment. A major contributor to this development is today’s pervasive digital technology that makes it easy to gather information and shop anytime from anywhere. No longer can retailers count on product availability and attractive pricing to win and keep customers. Instead, digitally literate, time-starved, value-driven consumers insist on a complete shopping experience—a connected experience—convenient, personalized, available in the store, by telephone or online. And this experience must feel the same regardless of channel; service levels that vary by channel can leave a bad impression with shoppers.

Excerpt: We've found, in our work with executives at dozens of organizations, that it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Will Durant, commenting on Aristotle, pointed out that the philosopher had it exactly right 2000 years ago: "We are what we repeatedly do." By relying on highly specific practices, we've seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, to deeply relaxing.

Microsoft RMS can connect to every major COOP / Distributor in the World. If a distributor is not on the list, just ask. This means overnight cost updates, item updates, for unique distributor items, or the same items. Microsoft tracks these costs so you can see them, report on them, or use Microsoft tools to automatically create replenishment orders from the lowest cost supplier for each specific item, ready for your review and/or edit, then click to send. Another approach is generate the entire order for 2 or more suppliers, compare costs, and send the desired order.

Customer retention has been an area of marketing focus for many companies this past year. To combat a widespread reticence to spend during the recession, many brands beefed up their existing loyalty programs to meet consumers' needs. Loyalty programs at some big-box stores have become more elaborate and offer more rewards and discounts than in the past.

We are pleased to present the results of the first Adobe Scene7 survey addressing online shoppers’ interest in visual merchandising, entitled “Adobe Scene7 Viewer Study: What Shoppers Want.” This consumer-facing, quantitative study was conducted by Keynote Services, the leading provider of on-demand test and measurement products, who surveyed 300 people across three different age groups (18-29, 30-49, 50-64) to identify and analyze eCommerce shopping features on the product page most useful for shoppers making an online purchase, and importantly, to provide quantitative findings to help businesses design ideal viewer or “visual merchandising” experiences to improve conversions...

For retail organizations that want to run operations more efficiently, improve service levels, and make the confident business decisions that fuel growth, Microsoft DynamicsTM Retail Management System (RMS) offers a flexible solution built for growth and investment protection from a proven provider. Release 2.0 offers new capabilities that enable retailers to adapt quickly to complex retail requirements and drive a lower cost of ownership.

When not managed carefully, inventory costs can be the difference between being profitable or losing your shirt. For most small retailers, inventory is the single most significant asset. Their inventory, their merchandise, defines who they are and speaks more clearly to their customers about what they're all about than any ad or marketing message...

The recession pushed shoppers to pick necessities over discretionary items, discounts over luxury. "Retailers are following through on their strategy to get their houses in order...

Ordering when the shelf "looks" empty or low is a fast track to extinction. But with thousands of items in a store, who has time to open each individual item and calculate stock levels?. The ability to rapidly calculate thousands of items based on specific historical date range(s), lead time, and supplier is a must. See a solution that works...

A Top Ten List: Why Your Company Should Be Using Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS)

We know you’re out there. You have to be at work at o’dark thirty, but you simply cannot help yourself. You have to stay up late enough to catch a glimpse of David Letterman’s famous Top Ten List. Whether he is poking fun at a political figure, making wise-cracks about the latest and greatest gifts and gadgets, or even listing the many reasons one should own a goat, he makes you laugh.

This Top Ten List is for you. It is the perfect marriage of business and pleasure, of profit and play, of ROI and LOL. Excellent.

How well do your sales associates and customer service team actually know your customers? Do they approach each customer encounter as a simple stand-alone transaction or as one element in a multi-faceted relationship?

There is a new reality show airing called Undercover Boss. You may have watched it right after the Super Bowl. It puts CEOs right on the front lines with the regular folks who don’t know their newest co-worker actually runs their company. While working alongside their employees, CEO’s will see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their company run.

What is stopping you from doing this? You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to do something similar. Would it change your view of the company? How would it help your company?

Customer satisfaction guaranteed.

Every company values its customers; right? After all, there is no business without them. But how does a company demonstrate that value? In what ways are tactics and strategies shaped by customer demands and driven by customer satisfaction? Perhaps they aren’t. Sometimes we lose sight of the customer as we focus on the bottom line. But forgetting that the customer is the most important focus is precisely what will alter that all-important profit and loss statement. We must love our customers. We must treat each of them as though he or she, alone, determines our strength as a company. Because each does. And we need to show all of them just how much they mean to us.

There are many ways how Microsoft Dynamics RMS can help prevent inventory loss, and here are some of them.

Having the right POS system can lift you up to a new level of control over your operations, increasing profits, efficiency as well as fine-tuning your business model. The wrong system, however, can be a source of ongoing frustration, not to mention the amount of time and money you waste on it.

Big thoughts and small actions make a difference.

Here’s what we’re working on and thinking about.

Things to think about (and do) this year.

What about you?

In the business world, good customer service often isn't good enough anymore.

Customers and clients are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the merely adequate. For them, extraordinary service is the rule, not the exception. Anything less, and they're happy to vote with their feet and their wallets.

That makes extraordinary service necessary, not just desirable. And that, in turn, mandates a strategy to help ensure that your business matches that standout service standard on a daily basis.

Here are seven ideas and tips to help your business establish and maintain an ongoing climate of service excellence.

In a period of economic uncertainty, finding ways to save money while addressing customers' need for value and maintaining their loyalty is ever more critical to a business' survival and success. The retail industry is in an unprecedented state of flux. Falling trade barriers, global sourcing trends, and new emerging markets have propelled globalization to greater importance. New technology constantly transforms the way customers interact with businesses. And as customer demands shift, and whole new channels of interaction emerge, retailers are presented with both the opportunity to create new, differentiating shopper experiences and the challenge of keeping up with the rapid pace of change.

“Don’t be a stranger now.” You’ve surely heard that expression, a most hospitable one. But for small business owners, a returning customer is essential to survival.

For the entrepreneur, it’s important to understand how to build a base of customers who return to your business time and again. Here are seven ideas and strategies to consider:.

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Strategies and technologies for surgically adjusting to today’s challenges and widening the gap when the economy rebounds.

The employer-employee relationship is fodder for all types of comic writing. It’s a complicated relationship demanding a difficult combination of direction, criticism, praise, compensation, and friendship. Satirists have made millions poking fun at the many ways the mentor-mentee connection can go horribly wrong (think Steve Carell on The Office). Here, we offer ten ways you can be the most-loved manager in the industry while also increasing employee productivity. Yes, you can do both.