The Dilemma: You’ve signed on for an annual advisory with a retail tech analyst firm. You need advice and guidance, but you are concerned about sharing “everything” with your advisors. After all, even with NDA’s in place, most firms also rate vendors in your space by placing them in quadrants, waves, or some other format that shows which vendor the analyst firm believes is “the best bet” for the industry. They also participate in vendor selection processes.

It’s really hard to be candid in that environment.  Your advisory calls devolve into finding out some statistics about market size, doing demos and asking generic questions about “what the analysts are seeing out there.”

Well, that’s not us, and we promise you we have a solution: We believe it’s the best advisory experience ever. Why?

• We never play both sides against the other. That is to say, we don’t do vendor comparisons, we don’t participate in systems selections (though we do assist retailers in establishing an IT roadmap and appropriate organizational structure), and we never do “vendor round-ups.”
• We are former industry practitioners, so we are a proxy for the kinds of people who will be sitting across from you when you make your pitch.

The two bullet points above may seem small, but in practice, they create a huge difference.  You can be candid, you can be open.  You don’t have to be perfect.  No matter how large or small you are, we can help you grow! We can help you prioritize your roadmap with real data-based insights, not just technology bells and whistles.

Since we’re a boutique firm, we can tailor a program specifically for your needs: from a single strategy day with two analysts to a full year, full-boat advisory.  In all cases, there will be no one between you and the analysts, and an unlimited (yes, really…unlimited) opportunity to run ideas and collateral by us for review throughout the duration of the advisory. We can train your sales people and help them gain a real understanding of retailers’ pain. This is no mean feat.

We act as a proxy for your target market.  Armed with mountains of data from our various benchmark reports and an embarrassingly long tenure in the retail industry, we will give you the opportunity to make your mistakes in private, and put your best foot forward when meeting with prospects and even existing clients. We put technology into context.

We can help you find the hot button(s) for “Retail Winners” and also for laggards (their money is good, and if you can really help them, you can be a hero!).  We can help you hone your message for specific retail verticals and retailers of different sizes.  After all, retailers know that “one size does not fit all.”

If possible, we like to start our advisories by stating objectives for the advisory period. With a kick-off call followed by a strategy day, we can establish those objectives together, so we are guaranteed to have more profound conversations than “What are you seeing out there?”

That’s why we really believe our advisory services will be your best advisory experience ever.  No barriers, no fear, and absolute and total candor.

Why should you miss out on the best advisory experience ever?  You’ve worked hard to get where you are.  Let us help you go even further.

If you’re interested in learning more about what RSR can do for you, please contact Linda Wolfe or visit our site to learn more.