Last week, RSR did a post-NRF debrief, highlighting the über themes from the Big Show conference/expo in NYC. You can absorb the messages from the big event on many levels. For example, there were plenty of shiny objects to get excited about. The Expo floor was chock full of them- lots of exciting technologies, that almost always had some element of mobile. Not only that, but the presentations themselves were pure eye candy. I couldn’t help but to think back to the boring old 20^th Century, when we didn’t have glittering interactive digital flat screens, wireless motion sensors, etc. This year even the small ten-by-ten booths that lined the sides of the expo floor featured lots of real working demos of the various technologies, and not a Powerpoint in sight.

As we discussed in our post-NRF webinar, mobile – especially mobile POS and payment technology, was everywhere. There were other things that veered towards the bizarre; for example, there was a slightly creepy life-size digital display in the shape of a female body running a digital video of a spokeswoman talking up the solution’s merits (the vendor explained to me that “soon, we’ll have a touch-enabled version! “, not understanding why that might not be the best idea). And if you wanted to be really dazzled, you didn’t need to look much further than the Intel booth to see an interactive vending machine or a robot that can sense when a shelf is getting low on stock or is out of compliance with the planogram.

All that’s well and good, but what stuck me most about the expo floor was the sense of “continuation ” from the 2011 and 2012 shows, when then-new customer facing “mobile ” technologies were all the rage. This year, the retail portfolio (a nicer way to say “retail ERP “) providers were focused on all the stuff behind the glittering objects – the applications and infrastructure that actually make those glittering objects do something useful. Although the event’s logo said “NEXT “, I really think it would have been better if it had been “NOW “, because it appears that the solutions are now ready to enable the omni-channel selling that mobile promised to make possible a couple of years ago.

Post ‘Omni’

I also think it’s time for the industry to drop the label “omni-channel “, although that phrase has been useful in underlining the fundamental change that consumer mobile electronics have enabled – the ability for a consumer to use more-than-one “channel ” to make a single purchase decision no matter where she is. As a matter of fact, I think the industry should drop the idea of selling channels, period. As far as consumers are concerned, retailers either solve their problem or not. They don’t see channels.

A practical example I saw of how the tech world has responded to that, was Toshiba‘s TCxGravity solution. This is Toshiba Global Commerce’s “coming out ” offering, and it (along with the stylish TCxWave hardware) looked good. The collaboration between IBM and Toshiba delivers POS functions on top of IBM‘s Smarter Commerce portfolio (and particularly Sterling Commerce Order Management and Sterling Store) to enable a number of “cross channel ” scenarios, for example finishing a transaction in the store that began in a digital channel. The person demonstrating it to me described it as enterprise customer management workstation, enabling a store associate to see the customer’s total experience as well as the selected product’s information and availability, and any pending offers or incentives available to the customer. Toshiba’s objective is to harmonize traditional POS (after all, the company now “owns ” all the thousands of lanes currently using IBM 4690) with all the new digital selling capabilities being offered to consumers.

Underlying it all of course is enterprise visibility into all that data. RSR has been talking about the need for “360° of visibility ” (for customer, product, and inventory information) to enable a “post channel world “, and we’re not alone: clearly virtually all of the retail portfolio providers see the same thing.

For example, Oracle promoted the concept of moving from “transactions to interactions “, with the message, “Integrate the customer experience/market, interact, transact, service – across touchpoints. ” They featured an integrated flow with their ATG and Endeca products through to the store with mobile POS, in addition to core retail applications and analytics. SAP demonstrated its Retail Planning and Precision Retail solution sets, all mobile-ized and to a great extent empowered by the company’s HANA technology. SAP’s message is three-tiered: “improve assortment and margins, improve product availability and service, and attract and retain customers ” – and they believe that all of those capabilities must be real-time (or something very close to that), mobile, and enterprise-wide. Microsoft, whose products are usually thought of in the context of consumer enablement, showed off its Dynamics suite with a message of “personal, seamless, and differentiated ” retailing, moving “from mass merchandise to personal merchandise ” and “from the company’s channel to my channel “. And IBM touted its Smarter Retail solutions, demonstrating technologies for a “smarter shopping experience, smarter merchandising and supply networks, and smarter operations. ” Finally, Red Prairie/JDA and NCR/Retalix explained how they too will provide the technology underpinnings of a post-channel retail model.

Beyond what the big portfolio companies showed off, others showed technologies that make the “harmonization ” of the digital worlds and the physical one possible.

It’s Not ‘Next’, It’s ‘Now’

It boils down to this: in order for retailers to be able to commit to serve customers anytime and anywhere via any touchpoint, they must be able to leverage what we describe it as “The 5 C’s ” of new retailing: with the Customer at the center, in the Context of the customer’s lifestyle need, retailers need to deliver Content about the possible solutions, along with feedback from the Community of like-minded shoppers. Finally of course, retailers need to be able to engage in Commerce with customers whenever and however customers want to engage. This is the essence of the “post-channel ” argument.

The good news from NRF 2013 is that everyone seems to “get it ” – we can all move on now to finding the best ways to empower and leverage this new retail model. So in essence, this NRF was mostly about execution, using the enabling solutions that are available now to win in this hyper-competitive world.