Multichannel Retail: Retail Solutions Online Q&A With CORESense — Interview With Jason Jacobs, CEO, CORESense
•White Paper: The CORESense Solution For Cross-Channel Retail Management
Retail Solutions Online recently had an opportunity to speak with Jason Jacobs, CEO of CORESense, one of the leading on-demand multichannel retail systems available to the small and midsized retailer. Jason talked with us about his view of the changing retail market, and what retailers need to stay competitive.
RSO: We keep hearing more about the need for end-to-end multi-channel solutions to help retailers better manage their business. What is it that has given rise to this trend?
JJ: There was a fundamental shift in consumer behavior that came out of the dotcom revolution. During that time and for several years after, there was a lot of time and money spent speculating about what this shift would mean to the retailer. I think it is clear to them now what needs to be done to stay competitive and grow in this new environment.
What's also clear is that the systems they built prior to and during this time have limitations that don't support the retailers' new strategies. They are now seeking multi-channel systems designed to enable these needs.
RSO: What advantages do retailers gain by selecting an on-demand, web-based solution?
JJ: The on-demand, or Software as a Service (SaaS), model is the software industries answer to the paradigm shift caused by the same revolution that changed retailers. It is a model of software delivery where the software company provides maintenance, daily technical operation, and support for the software provided to their client.
SaaS is great for the retailer for a number of reasons:
- It drastically decreases the cost of acquiring the technology they need.
- It aligns the software costs with the growth of the company. A great example of this is during the holiday season – as their software license needs increase because retailers bring in seasonal staff, they can easily add them. When they are no longer needed, they can quickly disable them and no longer have the additional cost.
- SaaS reduces the total cost of operation (TCO) as application, hardware and administrative costs are rolled up into the one monthly fee.
RSO: I understand that CORESense is an on-demand, web-based solution. How do you help retailers improve their cross-channel sales strategies and streamline their back office operations?
JJ: CORESense takes a holistic approach to the retailer's entire business. Just as you can't speed up one car of a train, you can't increase sales or decrease costs without affecting another part of your business. With that said, CORESense enables the four major areas of a retailer's business: Sales Channels, Order Fulfillment, Inventory and Supplier Management (including Warehouse Management) and CRM.
Core to the product is the centralized product catalog where retailers can instantaneously syndicate product and marketing data to any sales channel. We like to say that we allow merchandisers to merchandise without having IT be an obstacle—like the retailer I mentioned that was able to update content from the comfort of her living room. We also make it possible to rapidly add a new channel, whether it be a new retail store or web-based property.
Having this synergistic approach also enables the retailer to have a full view into their customer's cross-channel behaviors. From this they can decide to update their product mix, increase or decrease inventory levels, or even send out a targeted email campaign from the system.
RSO: So your POS is also web-based?
JJ: Absolutely. When opening a new store, or simply adding another POS, the retailer simply opens the box we ship to them and plugs in the unit to the internet and power supply. They are immediately connected.
RSO: How would you sum up how CORESense helps retailers?
JJ: In the end, to be successful, the retailer must touch more customers in a more meaningful way, before, during and after the sale. That's what we enable them to do.
RSO: Down the road, what are some of the new ways retailers can put an end-to-end solution to use?
JJ: That's the exciting part. With a true on-demand multi-channel system like CORESense, retailers can execute any new strategy they want because they have a technology foundation in place ready to grow and change with them.
RSO: Jason, thank you for your time.
JJ: My pleasure; thank you!
Click Here To Download:•White Paper: The CORESense Solution For Cross-Channel Retail Management