My tour around the outskirts of the NRF show floor this year produced some interesting findings. My basic goal was to walk the fringes and talk to some of the vendors in their 10x10 booths to see what they were offering. I focused on technology vendors and found everything from special terminals meant to be used by POS integrators for building a POS platforms platform, to full service business intelligence applications offered as services delivered over the Internet (SaaS). I have included links to each of their websites and encourage you to visit ones that seem interesting.
DirectEDI brings web-based SaaS to EDI with a service that provides customers full data conversion and works with both suppliers and buyers to support Electronic Data Interchange. Using DirectEDI unloads the responsibility for training new users and getting them online to the EDI vendor so the supplier or buyer can focus on their manufacturing or retail businesses.
1010Data offers business intelligence using SaaS to host and report on large databases built from detailed transaction files. They had been focused on other industries and have now developed templates for retail market basket analysis that can provide retailers pre-formatted reports while also quickly answering ad-hoc inquiries.
Chetu manages offshore software development projects for retailers and distributors and also offers services in business intelligence. They can be used to develop new software, integrate packages, or make modifications to packages.
TeleTech maintains an infrastructure that integrates a distributed staff of technicians into a work-at-home support service. TeleTech recruits, trains, and schedules support staff so that workers are vetted for subject area knowledge and then connected to the central service number over the phone network.
SafeNet provides a unique approach to meeting network security issues. They offer software that encrypts all the data that is stored in databases or transmitted across the network. The fundamental theory is that even if someone is able to gain access to your wireless network, they won't be able to understand what they are listening to. This meets the PCI DSS standard for data at rest and in motion.
Countwise offers TV cameras with embedded software to detect human beings. These can be used to count people entering the business, standing in queue or occupying a defined area. Knowing how many are in line has always been a quandary of store operations. Cameras that also have detection software can convert activity into statistics that can be monitored to ensure management objectives are being met.
Discussion Questions: What contribution are you seeing from today's small and start-up tech vendors? Is innovation still alive and well?
Author's comment: From a technology perspective, I was impressed with the number of small providers that have embraced SaaS. As you think about it, this makes sense. The Software as a Service business model exposes small entrepreneurs to the whole world of internet users. Boutique developers can focus on specific business problems to develop optimal solutions that they are willing to customize for each customer's requirements and capabilities. We have come full circle from the initial days of Apple and Microsoft to the large enterprises and now back to the small developer. Just as garage bands are competing with the big acts, these developers are going to compete with the large software houses to provide solutions.
This doesn't necessarily present an easy choice for the retailer CIO. On one hand, the cost of solutions should come down considerably, but the risk of putting your whole data warehouse project in the hands of a couple guys operating from their garage seems significant. SaaS is here to stay and the smart CIO will figure out ways to exploit it. They need to support parallel implementations that allow them to test multiple solutions. This means the retailer retains the transaction data that drives various solutions and can change service providers when the need arises.