The “Four Ps” of marketing strategy, also known as the “marketing mix,” are basically applicable to all businesses. TEC’s two-part blog post series in 2008 talked about the importance of pricing management in a down economy. Price and promotion in particular are the lubricants in retailing, although the two remaining Ps–product and place, are indisputably important there as well.

In his guest author article in Retail Info Systems (RIS) News, Wayne Usie, senior vice president of retail at JDA Software, remarks that one doesn’t have to go far to see the impact the economy is having on retailers. The evening news is plagued with store closings, while “going out of business signs” and ominously empty “for rent” spaces seem to pop up on every corner. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve begun publishing a new type of report (free download) called a Product Certification Report. These have been in the works for a while so I’m very happy to announce the first two are now available. I’ll post the links below and then explain what these reports are.

• Meridian Global LMS (an enterprise learning management system [LMS] as certified by Sherry Fox)
• Pronto Software’s Pronto Xi (an ERP system available for a variety of industries as certified by Aleksey Osintsev)

We actually develop two reports for every software system we certify. One report (examples published at the links above) is written for potential buyers of the product, it’s relevant to someone researching or comparing various software systems for their own selection projects. It should be a useful, independent and unbiased addition to an in-depth evaluation process. Vendors also receive their own copies of the report, with insights that pertain to their product development and competitive landscape.  Read the rest of this entry »

The proliferation of “big box” retail outlets across the suburban landscape has been part of the retail environment for more than a decade. As population target demographics have shifted away from urban centers into suburban areas, retail organizations have capitalized on this trend. Read the rest of this entry »

Part II of this blog topic analyzed Epicor’s forays into the attractive retail sector via the CRS Retail acquisition two years ago. Most recently, with the acquisition of NSB Retail Systems, Epicor has further expanded its functional footprint, market share and geographic presence in the sector. Namely, NSB added over 200 specialty retail logos, thereby more than doubling Epicor’s retail install base.

While many analysts like Gartner, AMR Research or Aberdeen Group have quickly come up with their customary brief alerts, the usual-suspect bloggers have not seemed that interested in this event, with the notable exception of Frank Scavo in his Enterprise Systems Spectator blog post.

I concur with the assertion coming from both Epicor and the above analysts and bloggers that the retail sector is much more promising and with many more “greener pastures” than Epicor’s traditional overcrowded manufacturing and distribution sectors. The retail applications market is indeed large (AMR Research is predicting its size to be over US$10 billion by 2011 from US$8 billion today), growing (at an estimated 7.1 cumulative annual growth rate [CAGR]) and quite fragmented (whereby Top 5 vendors accounted for only 33 percent of the market in 2006, and no vendor currently has over 10 percent market share).

Epicor also cites some favorable trends in the sector, such as that (as with other industries) the adoption of packaged software will become the common technology approach, and that retailers too have become more interested in acquiring an integrated set of applications from a single vendor. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog topic  introduced Epicor Software and its traditional vertical solutions. It also analyzed Epicor’s forays into the attractive retail sector via the CRS acquisition two years ago. Designed for integration and scalability, the  Epicor/CRS Retail Suite can support a wide variety of retail enterprises’ requirements.

These environments range from the rapidly expanding regional retailer requiring point-of-sale (POS), store operations and merchandising, to the large, global retailer requiring central management, visibility and control over hundreds or thousands of distributed stores and outlets.

Epicor/CRS  customers include leading retailers such as Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Ann Taylor, Cache, Chico’s, Coach, Eileen Fisher, Factory Connection, Foot Locker, GNC, J.Crew, Stage Stores, Trans World Entertainment, Tuesday Morning, Inc., Yankee Candle Company and Zumiez, among others. The retail division employs more than 360 employees based in Newburgh, New York, the United States (US), with regional offices in Seattle, Washington, US and Bracknell, the United Kingdom (UK). Read the rest of this entry »

One renowned vendor seems to have contributed to the 2007 holiday shopping season. That would be Irvine, California, the United States (US)-based Epicor Software Corporation (Nasdaq: EPIC). With over 2,500 employees worldwide and with projected 2007 revenues of $414.5 million (not including the pending acquisition), Epicor is the global leader in the mid-market, serving over 20,000 customers worldwide.

With more than 20 years of operating history (since 1984, including a number of acquisitions and name changes), Epicor today delivers comprehensive enterprise software solutions with a sophistication and maturity that competes with Tier One vendors, but typically at a fraction of the cost associated with these bigger brethren solutions. Namely, these large enterprise systems, though highly functional, have traditionally also been quite complex and expensive to purchase, install, integrate, and maintain. Read the rest of this entry »

Take note if you’re evaluating software for any of the following types of systems.

• learning management
• POS or merchandising
• financial software
• CRM
• distribution-oriented ERP

We recently published updated ratings on a number of vendors’ products. Individual reports are available for purchase, or better you can review the ratings in-depth using a free evaluation centers trial. Here’s a quick rundown of the updates.

Knowledge Management Solutions’ KMx product, which is an integrated e-learning package, is up-to-date as of its 4.3 version in the Learning Management Evaluation Center.

Retalix targets companies with retail and distribution requirements. Depending on what your company does, you can view its products’ functionality based on our ERP - Distribution, SCM, Merchandising, or POS models of enterprise software.

Two significant updates in the area of enterprise financial software are online for comparison. One is for the Lawson S3 Finance system and the other is for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Finally, the latest information on Sage SalesLogix is available in our CRM Evaluation Center. It covers a 30% change from the previous ratings and shows new or increased support for over fifty features.

Because we continuously update our knowledge bases with new ratings and research, I’ll make an effort to publish short notes like these periodically.