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Manufacturers, It's Time To Put Data To Work

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 15, 2019 8:00:00 AM

Manufacturers everywhere have an extremely underutilized employee. This employee is a robust repository of institutional knowledge, facts, and random trivia. However, this employee is full of latent potential that hasn’t yet been tapped, and they are ready to do so much more.

Ok, so maybe this is a quirky metaphor, but—in case it wasn’t clear—this underutilized employee is your organization’s data. And Data could be doing so much more to help your human employees make better decisions.

For many manufacturers, the collected data is sitting in various databases and spreadsheets, waiting to be called upon, sorted, and analyzed to inform decisions across your organization.

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Topics: ERP, Manufacturing, Food & Beverage, Enterprise Resource Planning

Podcast: #NoFilter: Authentic Videos Are The Future Of Experiential Retail

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 10, 2019 8:00:00 AM

To date, retailers have been cautious with live product broadcasts, but a wealth of opportunity exists to connect with customers, build their brands, and significantly increase sales with authentic video content. From combining influencers with real life people trying products to gamification and interactive broadcasting, brands should be looking to authentic video content as they move into the future of retail. In this episode of Reinventing Retail, we chat with Dave Dabbah of Agora.io, an API platform that’s bringing peer-to-peer video to retailers and fashion brands.

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Topics: Fashion & Retail, Retail, CloudSuite Retail

Podcast: DOM Is The Heartbeat Of Your Network

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 8, 2019 8:00:00 AM

This podcast will look at the future of how order management will evolve from simply executing orders to truly optimizing how to best serve your customer. Listen as Guy Courtin and Tim Nelson discuss what to anticipate with the evolution of order management: next generation optimization rather than simply execution of orders. The cost to serve a customer will become more important than simply the cost to fulfill.

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Topics: Fashion & Retail, Retail, Supply Chain, CloudSuite Retail

Happy National Manufacturing Day - 2019

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 4, 2019 8:00:00 AM

Launched annually on the first Friday in October, and with events continuing throughout the month, MFG Day helps show the reality of modern manufacturing careers by encouraging thousands of companies and educational institutions around the nation to open their doors to students, parents, teachers and community leaders. Over the next decade, manufacturers will need to fill 4.6 million jobs—jobs that are high skill, high tech and high paying. These career opportunities include high pay and exposure to cutting-edge technology and innovations. MFG Day is a time for manufacturers to open their doors and open minds, to connect the future workforce to potential employers and change the narrative around manufacturing.

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Topics: Manufacturing, National Manufacturing Day

Mobile Retail Is Alive, And Consumers Are Here For It

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 3, 2019 8:00:00 AM

Stop and think about a day you could go without your smartphone. You are checking your calendar to see when or if that is even possible. And yet you may not realize that checking email, texting your doctor or tracking your children’s usage is only part of the life your smart device breathes into you. Last year, Americans made almost 30% of purchases through a mobile device. Next-day and same-day delivery created a market for mobile shoppers and retailers are responding.

The one where the market creator remains the market leader

Amazon, the retail Goliath, created the market for instant gratification with its online presence and product availability.

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Topics: Fashion & Retail, Retail, Fashion & Apparel, Infor Retail, Online Retail, Fashion PLM, CloudSuite Retail

Inforum 2019 Focuses On Ease Of Deployment And Intelligent ERP

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 2, 2019 8:00:00 AM

Infor is focused on productivity improvements and outcomes-based delivery of projects as the keys to ERP technology success.

To enhance productivity, Infor wants to make it easier for customers to move to its CloudSuite systems, a cloud-based ERP, and wants those systems to be embedded with intelligent ERP technologies such as business analytics, as well as AI, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA).

"We're constantly looking at ways for our software to bring value to your organization," Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson said during Inforum 2019's opening keynote.

There is interest in intelligent ERP, but some customers and analysts believe it's too early to tell if it will be widely adopted in applications.

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Topics: ERP, Infor M3, Enterprise Resource Planning, AI, Machine Learning

Podcast: Manufacturing And The Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Network

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Oct 1, 2019 11:41:11 AM

In this podcast, Infor’s Guy Courtin and Christine Barnhart discuss how manufacturers are adopting learnings from B2C supply chains to be more responsive to end customer needs. From AI and machine learning to greater digitization of the supply chain, modern manufacturers must become more nimble and responsive—creating a true multi-enterprise network to meet their customers’ needs.

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Topics: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Fashion & Apparel, Industrial Manufacturing, Fashion

How Are Your Store Associates Showing Up For Work?

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Sep 30, 2019 8:00:00 AM

The headlines continue to predict the apocalypse of the physical store and assert that the new normal will belong solely to e-commerce, mobile, and omni-channel retailers. Because of all the fuss, many retailers today have a tendency to focus primarily on process and technology; but in turn, they forget about one of their most important assets—their people. It’s more accurate to say that retail is simply evolving—rebalancing amid a market where it’s tantamount that brands and retailers continue to focus on three key aspects of their businesses: people, process, and technology.

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Topics: Retail, CloudSuite Retail, Fashion

A Fresh Look At Bringing Product Innovation To Market.

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Sep 26, 2019 8:00:00 AM

At a recent Infor webinar they discussed the importance of new and revised products to a food company’s revenue and bottom-line growth. Successful product innovation, though, has never been more complex as consumers’, customers’ and regulators’ expectations continue to evolve and expand. And this is not just a challenge for your R&D department. It expands across all disciplines from procurement to production to marketing.

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Topics: Food & Beverage, Infor M3, Infor Optiva, CloudSuite Food & Beverage

Is There An Unrelenting Collapse Of The Middle In Retail?

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Sep 24, 2019 10:00:00 AM

We thought this was an interesting article. Published by Forbes this month it talks about how it’s a virtual certainty that this year will end with physical stores sales not only being up year over year (again) but also, according to eMarketer, contributing more incremental sales growth than e-commerce.

Great news but for all retailers? Here's what Mitchell Chi, ICCG's General Manager - Americas, Enterprise Software has to say...

My thoughts about the collapse of the middle…

Did you know that 83% of retail shoppers enjoy socializing with friends centered on physical stores? Some retailers, when pressured to increase margins, focused on cutting wages, training and staff. They shifted spending to store displays, traditional advertising, and  a poor product assortment. These retailers deserved to die. Good riddance. 

But all of this makes the mid-market ripe for a low cost, “social retailer.” One like Primark. Great selection, well trained staff and FUN. My go to store for weekend, lay around the house clothing. 

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Topics: Retail, Infor M3, Retail Trends, Online Retail, CloudSuite Retail, Cloudsuite Fashion & Apparel, CloudSuite PLM

About ICCG

Welcome to our Blog - ICCG Insights!

Embracing thought leadership as a pathway for growth, represents the true spirit of progressive change that will make a difference in technology-driven industries. As a consulting company, ICCG customers look to us as their value-added resource. They expect us to be proactive about solving their immediate challenges and we don’t take that responsibility lightly. It is this that drives us to share our best practices, knowledge-base, years of experience, and tried and true methodologies. These have been the hallmarks of our corporate brand.

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