I have been discussing the benefits of ZBD's solution with business and retail technology people around the world, and it's interesting how new technology is received in different geographies. Some might say that the UK has been the leader in deploying new technology to solve some of the age-old problems, others would say that US retailers have cracked the supply chain, whilst some of the Eastern European markets are leap-frogging everyone with little or no legacy systems to worry about.
One thing that is consistent is that in the world of ESL (electronic shelf labels), there has always been a certain amount of stigma attached to the associated business case and infrastructure requirements. What do I mean by this? Well, for many years, traditional ESL vendors have been fighting with each other over the same customers and have had varying degrees of success but have generally let the customer down through either the business case or the ongoing cost of and reliability of the infrastructure.
I have spoken to so many people who tell me that it's not about the product cost (segment display); you have to think about the installed cost, factor in the cabling, the transceivers, servers, etc. Oh, and by the way, you always need more equipment than was originally quoted. And don’t forget the cost of shutting down and aisle when something breaks down...
'Well you would say that', I can hear you saying. Believe me, that's what I hear in every meeting I attend. But there is hope around the corner and it is what ESL should have looked like 10 years ago but nobody had the solution to fit, not even us, we were still in the labs.
What we are left with is a commodity product not a business-enabling platform. At ZBD, we've listened and become business-driven not technology-led. This is not the norm with technology vendors I can assure you. We have had the benefit of science and support from some of the smartest people out there, they talk a different language to me, but you would expect that from guys who invented the LCD technology.
It's all about performance and results so when you focus in on the real issues, you find that a huge amount of manual effort is required to run a retail operation, some of which has been automated (back office, POS and supply chain). But there is still a big void in the store, a lot of which is product replenishment. Unfortunately until they have cheap robots, that’s the way it will stay. Updating pricing, promotion and product information is as manual a process as it has always been. OK, we do have printers instead of in-store signwriters, granted.
How about this, I walk into any retailer with a laptop, a single communicator and I can show the store manager that I can update any price any time, anywhere with complete store-wide coverage, with no black spots and can report on every update. As Pepsi used to say, 'take the challenge', so come on take the ZBD challenge…..
David Rogers
Sales & Marketing Director
david.rogers@zbd.co.uk
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