Author: Catherine Seeds

In part two of our special edition of “Ask the Influencers” we talked to Janet and Nikki about how they stay up to date on retail trends, the best advice they’ve been given and what they are most looking forward to in 2018:

How do you most like to stay up to date on trends?

Janet: “I keep up via Twitter, LinkedIn and events I participate in. I follow the industry magazines, retail experts and the retailers themselves. There is some great content out there if you look. I also maintain great relationships with our customers. They are a wealth of information. A lot of them participate in our annual user group conference where they are sharing a lot of information, specifically around what’s working, what’s not, and what they are seeing in the industry. That kind of information is invaluable.”

Nikki: “Well, RSR surveys a lot of retailers all year long, so looking at their answers to our questions helps a lot! I also read a lot, and I talk to people. I try to ask questions to everyone – retailers, tech providers, friends and family. Everybody shops. Everybody is a consumer. Therefore, everyone has an opinion about retail. The hard part is sifting through all that to get to directional trends. I do think there’s some art to that.”

What’s the best piece of personal or professional advice you’ve been given?

Janet: “The best advice I’ve been given was to ‘enjoy it.  Enjoy what you’re doing.  There will always be ups and down, but if you are enjoying the process, the people, the work, then it’s all worth it.”

Nikki: “The two biggest lessons I’ve learned – from advice given, then validated through personal experience – is one, always look to learn from everyone you interact with. Everyone has a lesson to be learned, whether they intended to teach that lesson or not. It’s way easier to learn from other people’s mistakes (or successes!) than from your own. Every mistake or bad outcome can be at least somewhat salvaged if you can ask yourself, ‘What should I learn from this?’. But you have to have a learning mindset to make that possible.”

“And two, everything – and I mean everything, I even count things like singing in this – really is 95% hard work and 5% innate talent. There probably are a million Beyonces out there, singing like angels in their showers. But it’s Beyonce who was willing to put in the hard work that got her to where she is. And yeah, lucky breaks play a part, but a lucky break comes to someone who is ready and able to take advantage of it when it comes their way. If you combine 1 and 2 – always have a learning mindset, and work hard at whatever it is you want to master – then you’ll go places.”

 What are you most looking forward to in 2018?

Janet: “I feel like we are positioned very well for 2018.  I think that retailers are realizing that the stores are still, and will continue to be a very important part of the consumers’ experience.  The Opterus solution is all about making sure that the store associates and the stores are ready for consumers to have a wonderful and consistent in-store experience. I think the problem we solve, operational excellence, communication, task management and overall compliance and accountability for the retailer, is key to making the stores something that customers will want to return to over and over again. So, I’m excited for what the year holds and how we can help retailers be more efficient and effective in managing the stores and creating something special.”

Nikki: “You know, at RSR, we never try to predict the future, because it’s just so uncertain. What I’m most hoping for in 2018 is to see a retailer who has figured out what the store really needs to be in a post-omnichannel world. I would really like to see that future brought to life. I would really like to see retailers start innovating again – innovating in a way that moves beyond just trying to find more ways to sell more stuff. 2018 could be the year! But, to be brutally honest, I thought 2017 could’ve been that year too, and it wasn’t!”

Nikki Baird is Managing Partner at Retail Systems Research focusing on trends impacting the consumer-retailer relationship, along with their supply chain and marketing implications. She brings perspective from all sides of the retail technology equation – having served in technology roles at both a large and a small retailer, and has provided advisory and consulting services for Fortune 500 retailers, distributors, and manufacturers.

Janet Hawkins has more than 20 years of experience in the retail market working for industry leaders such as NCR, Triversity and SAP. She has held a wide variety of positions with areas of responsibility including global strategic business partner relationships, third party technology partners, clients and resellers, business development, and project management. This has contributed to her strong relationship management, leadership and team building skills.

 

I’d like to take a second to brag on my fellow “Wonder Women” out there: a recent Zenger Folkman study of 51,418 leaders in the U.S. and internationally found that women are considered more effective than male leaders. What’s more, former U.S. President Barack Obama said last month at an invitation-only event in Paris that more women need to be put in positions of power “because men seem to be having some problems these days.”

Seriously though, it’s been tough out there for women – and I’m not just talking about the past few months of daily horrific sexual harassment news stories. As the female cast members from Saturday Night Live recently sang about in the parody music video, “Oh, this been the dang world!”

But enough with the negative already. At Ketner Group, we believe in the positive stories, which is why we wanted to dedicate time to shine the spotlight on women executives who are leading the charge to make a difference. In this two-part blog, we speak with two very talented women entrepreneurs, Janet Hawkins, founder and president of Opterus, and Nikki Baird, co-founder and managing partner at Retail Systems Research. In this first blog, we ask Janet and Nikki about their thoughts on women working in retail and the biggest changes impacting the retail industry:

In your experience up to now, how have things changed for women working in the retail industry? What other changes would you like to see?

Janet: “The biggest change is that I see more women in more influential roles in the industry. I definitely think a women’s perspective was needed.  I also find that the women I’m connecting with are a group of strong, intelligent, driven people who are very interested in collaboration, sharing ideas and taking pleasure when others are achieving.  It wasn’t always that way. I’d love to see this be encouraged and to continue.”

Nikki: “You know, I think retail has been one of the more progressive industries in this regard. Not that retail has been a leader in tackling women in the workplace, but at least in my experience, it hasn’t been nearly as bad as I’ve seen in other industries, like tech or manufacturing or supply chain. In an industry where (much of) a consumer’s shopping money is discretionary, or at least has a lot of competition for those dollars, there has been a big focus on understanding the customer, and a lot of acknowledgement that an executive should not be using their personal experience as the basis for saying they “understand the customer.” I think that has forced more thinking about women’s lifestyles and women’s needs than you see in other industries, and some of it, I have to believe, seeps into the workplace.”

“That said, retail needs to do more. I still see too many women only in marketing or HR roles, and not in tech or supply chain or even store operations. And there’s a real ruckus being raised right now by tech circles about the lack of women in Artificial Intelligence – which retailers are increasingly looking to adopt in some form or another. If it’s a bunch of toxic bros teaching your customer service chatbot how to interact with other toxic bros, that’s going to lead to some real misses on the customer service side for a retailer primarily serving women.”

What do you think are the biggest changes (technology or otherwise) most impacting the retail industry?

Janet: “When Opterus first came to market, only a short time ago, cloud solutions weren’t common.  Back then, a lot of retailers we spoke with believed and asked to host our solution on premise. We stuck to our guns, knowing the future was in the cloud. We don’t have any on premise installations of our solution. In the early days, it was hard to say no at the risk of losing the deal, but we did. Today, we almost never get asked the question. There is much more confidence in technology now and an understanding of the cost savings, efficiencies and benefits embracing new technology can bring to the table.”

Nikki: “Oh, omnichannel by far. Everything that has happened in omnichannel up until now has been a prelude to the REAL change that has yet to happen. Retailers have made only surface-level changes so far, but we’re getting to the point where they can’t move forward without making substantial, structural changes. Look at stores – retailers are struggling to figure out where to wedge in storage for click and collect. Retailers are struggling to figure out where to put the pack & ship station for ship from store. They’re trying to figure out last mile delivery and inventory visibility and in-aisle purchases. And at the same time, they have all these cashier stands that just aren’t getting used. Fixing that means construction and remodel. Literally, rip and replace. None of that has happened yet – though I’m starting to see some signs of it. That’s where big bucks start getting committed, because if you’re going to rip out the front of your store to revamp it because of omnichannel, you might as well tackle the rest of it while you’re at it. And that’s just looking at stores. Supply chain, merchandising, even product design will all feel ripple effects as well as their own direct impacts. When it comes to omnichannel, the industry is just getting started.”

Please read part two of our blog where we talk to Janet and Nikki about how they stay up to date on retail trends, the best advice they’ve been given and what they are most looking forward to in 2018.