The Best Thing I Saw At NRF Was NOT A Mobile Application

By Matt Pillar, editor in chief

In fact, the most promising thing I heard at NRF wasn’t so much about technology as it was about two unlikely companies partnering to solve an operational problem that’s fundamental to the future of retail.

I’ll explain that in a minute, but first let me give fair press to a couple of the tech products I saw at NRF that made me stop and take notice.

• Isis Has Given The Mobile Wallet Legs.

So I was a little enamored by a mobile app after all. Frankly, years-long talk backed by little promise of widespread or near-term adoption had me a little bored by the concept. But Isis, the company behind an NFC-powered app that moves cards, offers, and loyalty data to the smartphone, is up and running in Austin and Salt Lake City. It has the backing of American Express, Capital One, and Chase.

My only (minor) hang-up with ISIS remains that I if I lose my phone, I lose my wallet, and vice versa. Yes, one call to my wireless carrier or a visit to the Isis site freezes everything on the wallet (which is already password protected), but it’s sure hard to find a payphone these days. Interesting side note: Oracle’s Mike Webster told me and a few other reporters at the show that there is, in fact, a payphone at the Jacob K. Javitz center, that it’s in a corner of the building unreached by cell service, and that he actually saw someone using it.

• Epson Makes The Printer The Star Of The POS.

As the relevance of the physical POS erodes, printing powerhouse Epson sees an opportunity to throw some elbows and upgrade its real estate. Epson showed off its new OmniLink Smart Solutions lineup, a series of “intelligent” printers that can enable—get this—cloud services, Web-based printing, open platform mobility, peripheral connectivity, and PC computing—independent of other POS components.

What does all that mean?

I’ll soon be interviewing a retailer that uses an OmniLink-powered application called Livelenz. The story will illustrate why Epson is really on to something in its recognition that a smart printer could become the heart and soul of the new mobile, cloud-based POS. Livelenz sits in the cloud gathering detailed transaction data from an OmniLink-enabled Epson T88V-i printer, creating instant access to all sorts of powerful real-time analytics like promotions efficacy, product cost, labor cost, daily sales, LP/shrink metrics, and so on.

Livelenz doesn’t care what POS you’re running because it doesn’t gather its intelligence from the POS. Who saw the lowly workhorse of the POS peripheral world stepping in to fill such big shoes?

• Store Workforce (Kronos), Meet The Supply Chain (Manhattan)

So here it is, the most promising bit of news I pulled from NRF this month. Sorry, it’s not a mobile gadget or a new omnichannel application balancing on the cusp of fantastic or flop. But, its success or failure has great implications on each of the shiny mobile, cross/multi/omnichannel gadgets and apps scattered across the NRF show floor.

A lot of the hardware and software applications you see at the show are designed to enable retailers to enable consumers to buy anywhere/any how and have their purchases fulfilled anywhere/any how. That sounds wonderful, but retail wasn’t built for it.

Stores aren’t fulfillment centers. They’re not designed that way. They’re not stocked that way. They’re not staffed that way.

In conversations with execs from logistics powerhouse Manhattan Associates and store ops/workforce management leader Kronos, I learned of a partnership that just a few years ago would have left you scratching your head, but one that makes absolute sense and harbors profound promise today. The partnership comes on the heels of a similar 2012 deal between Manhattan and WFM provider Empower Software.

Historically, store labor schedules and budgets have been built using such inputs as physical POS, store traffic and task data. Because inventories and order fulfillment were managed separately to meet the needs of specific channels, online and mobile orders weren’t part of the store labor and budgeting equation. That’s not to mention any perceived need to train store associates to act like DC workers, save for the occasional merchandise transfer. But, as retailers hurtle toward this notion of “omnichannel” retailing, the status quo isn’t working. All these new tools and apps and devices designed to allow the fluid movement and fulfillment of merchandise get a great big wrench thrown in their gears when the stores that harbor the inventory aren’t staffed, trained, and equipped to enable cross-channel fulfillment.

The successful integration of labor change and fulfillment expertise at the store level is overdue; it promises improved profit margins and unprecedentedly amazing customer experiences in this new age of cross-channel expectation.

Manhattan has the tools that create visibility into incoming cross-channel demand and plenty of fulfillment operations expertise to share with stores. Kronos and Empower are adept at aligning that kind of demand with in-store labor needs and budgets. At NRF this year, Manhattan and Kronos announced a strategic partnership to affect the kind of operations-level change that will, theoretically, help all the cross-channel gadgetry work well. That’s why it’s bigger news than the gadgetry itself.

What motivation came from last year’s RedPrairie/JDA acquisition is irrelevant, and where the Kronos/Manhattan and Empower/Manhattan partnerships go from here remains to be seen. What’s for sure is the fact that some huge portfolios of retail brands have a powerful new alliance in their quest to take another step toward “omnichannel.”

We’ll be covering plenty more from the NRF Show in coming editions of the newsletter and in Integrated Solutions For Retailers magazine. Meanwhile, if you were at the show, share what caught your eye in the comments section.