I read a recent article in Forbes that talked about upheaval in the shopping mall industry. There's a link to it at the end of my commentary and I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts on it as well. Here are mine:

“HURRY AND DIE MALLS."

Your days are over. People want a social experience, not products. Mark-downs and sales clerks. As we all know, the hype, “Retail is Dead” is just that, hype. Consider the following. 87% of consumer retail is transacted in brick & mortar, physical stores. Yes, you heard me…87%. In fact, a recent NRF report stated retail sales, in stores, are up 4.9%. NOT e/comm, by true shopping and social interaction.

The net is, if you fear Amazon will put you out of business, shame on you! You “owned” your customers for decades, but did you do anything to earn their loyalty except showcase your products? 30% of my personal shopping is on-line. Mostly under $50 commodities. 70% is spent with retailers who invest in their employees training & wages, innovative products, and exceptional customer service, both pre and post sale. Malls are (I hate this word), “transforming” into social town centers with entertainment (movies, concerts, festivals), attractions (claiming walls, work-out centers, VR and the like), hard goods (driver training hosted by auto manufacturers, cooking classes hosted by appliance manufacturers and the like) and most of all, a place to stop texting and start socializing”. Mall dead? Yes, while town centers are thriving!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.