Are you in the fog or are you painting by numbers?

I was at a conference recently and one of the presenters introduced me to a way of looking at projects that I hadn’t come across before. This applies to any project but it certainly applies to technology focussed projects within retail. Eddie Obeng (MBA PhD) is Learning Director at the Pentacle Virtual Business School and more details can be found in his book “All Change! The Project Leader’s Secret Handbook”.

Briefly, projects can be divided into four types (see the diagram below) depending on the experience of the team and the certainty of the objective.

Foggy – Projects are foggy when the objectives are not well defined and the team has little experience of the type of work.

Quest – On this type of project, everyone knows the objective very clearly but the team does not have much experience. An example of this is the project to put a man on the moon.

Film Making – When the team is very experienced in doing the type of work required to complete the project but the objective is not clear, projects can be likened to film making – the actors and the camera men are very skilled, but only the director knows how he wants the finished product to look.

Painting by Numbers – The least risk to a project is achieved where the team is experienced and the objective clear. In these circumstances, a realistic plan can be put in place and each section completed to achieve a successful outcome.

Which of these categories does your project fall into? How much risk are you carrying? What steps do you need to take to move into a less risky quadrant?

Have you tested EPSON?

Epson, that well known purveyor of hardware to the retail trade, has launched a marketing initiative TESTEPSON. Navigate to www.pos.epson.co.uk/testepson and enter the details of your project and they will recommend the most suitable printer and lend a test printer so it can be evaluated.

I’m sure this is actually nothing new. Epson have been providing printers to retailers for years (how many  TM-T88s are there out there?) and loan stock was always available for retailers to try out but it’s a neat marketing idea.

Growth by Acquisition

Consolidation of the retail technology market is nothing new. Torex is the best known and most extreme example with, according to them, upwards of 39 EPoS products at customers, but other companies have been on the acquisition trail on a lesser scale too. Take Sanderson (not the William Morris fabric!). The history of the retail side of their business looks like this.

Dec 2004 Sanderson floated on AIM with a mail order, fulfilment and multichannel offering.

July 2005 Acquired Progressive Computer Systems

Feb 2006 Acquired Megabyte and the Midas retail suite which includes EPoS, HO and multichannel. Megabyte brought with it customers such as English Heritage, Faith and Rohan.

Feb 2007 Bought Elucid from K3. Elucid products cover EPoS, Webshop, call centre and CRM and customers include Hotel Chocolat.

Sep 2007 Acquired RBS best known for its marketing, implementation and support of Retail-j but also of other retail systems. RBS brought with it heavy weight customers such as Harrods, Blacks and French Connection.

Not quite at the stage of send your RFP to them and let them do the selection for you but certainly a complex offering both for potential customers to understand and for Sanderson to integrate into a seamless solution for the modern retailer.

Is the consolidation of plastic in your wallet as per the Onepulse necessarily a good thing?

The move to contactless payment is gathering pace. Travelling on the tube I saw an advertisement for the Barclaycard Onepulse – an oyster, credit and cashless payment card all in one – no surprise that it was on the Jubillee line, stopping at Canary Wharf, right in the heart of the trial area. 3600 sites now accept contactless payment in London and predictions are that 5 million cards will be issued by the end of the year.

However, with the Onepulse in particular, Is the consolidation of plastic in your wallet as per the Onepulse necessarily a good thing? Lose your “ticket” on the tube and your credit card has gone. Get your wallet stolen and you can’t even get home using the ticket in your pocket. Following a near detainment in a hotel in India which could have been avoided if I had had additional back up plastic, I was looking at carrying more plastic not less – a back up plan is always useful!

What is a kiosk?

I visited Hostec last week (the main technology show for the hospitality industry). One trend which hospitality and retail share is the enthusiasm for kiosks.

If anything, the business case for kiosks is even more compelling for hospitality than for retail. Replacing staff to man the front desk all night with a kiosk which can accept a credit card and issue a key card has a compelling business case. CityInns and Zleep hotels are making progress towards this with kiosks from Ariane Systems.

But kiosks come in many guises from vending machines selling essentials you might have forgotten to the check in/out scenario. In fact, could an automated minibar be classified as a kiosk?