Smart Retailing: Leveraging BPM, BR and SOA in Retailing

Retailers exist in one of the most competitive environments in all of business. Customer taste and demand changes quickly, and leading retailers stay ahead of demand in order to survive. Keeping customers and eliciting customer loyalty is also an elusive pursuit.

The challenges are more than the relatively simple matter of getting customers what they want, where and when they want it. Retailers must be keenly aware of future demand, and be ultimately anticipatory in meeting it.

Retailers exist in one of the most competitive environments in all of business. Customer taste and demand changes quickly, and leading retailers stay ahead of demand in order to survive. Keeping customers and eliciting customer loyalty is also an elusive pursuit.

The challenges are more than the relatively simple matter of getting customers what they want, where and when they want it. Retailers must be keenly aware of future demand, and be ultimately anticipatory in meeting it. This risky proposition requires significant investment in customer information management, supply chain capabilities, and operational automation. Infusing insight at the Point of Interaction will help create an efficient, agile and smarter Retail Enterprise.

Since business process management (BPM), business rules management (BRM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) all support the practice of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of any organization by automating and optimizing the organization's business processes, they are key components of initiatives to produce a smarter retailer.

This session will explore the use of BPM, BRM and SOA to achieve smart retailing objectives such as: obtaining a more thorough understanding of customer demand, better demand forecasting, elimination of stock-outs, shorter lead time for new products, optimized used of retail space, a unified experience between on-line and in-store shopping, more efficient logistics, and a more responsive value chain.

Speaker Bio:

Robert McCullough, Retail Industry Analyst

Robert McCullough was a founding principal and the senior vice president of research for Experture, a startup research and advisory firm. At Experture, McCullough managed the research staff, created research agendas and delivered research and advisory services to clients. He is a subject matter expert in ERP, SCM, Retail and Manufacturing. Mr. McCullough has held a number of senior analyst and marketing positions at leading analyst firms - IDC and Yankee Group - and technology vendors. He also spent a number of years as an IT practitioner, creating, implementing and supporting systems at companies of varying size. A frequent speaker, and often quoted in trade media, McCullough is a graduate of Suffolk University (B.S./B.A.) and Babson College (MBA). He brings his current professional experience to the classroom in his curriculum for graduate-level strategy courses he teaches at Boston University.

Tom Dwyer, VP of Research, BrainStorm Group and Editorial Director, BPMInstitute.orgTom Dwyer is the VP of Research for BrainStorm Group, the Editorial Director of BPMInstitute.org, and Editorial Board Member for SOAInstitute.org and a co-chair of BrainStorm Group's SOAI conference series.  He writes, presents and consults on topics that include Service-Oriented Architecture, Business-to-Business, Enterprise Application Integration, and Business Process Management.  Mr. Dwyer has conducted primary research and published extensive reports on the Application Software Infrastructure markets. Before becoming an industry analyst in 1998, Mr. Dwyer spent 28 years in the computer industry in various engineering, marketing, professional services, and sales functions.  He was a co-founder and general manager of a new software venture at Xerox, which became a wholly owned subsidiary.  Mr. Dwyer has held senior management positions in marketing and engineering at Wang Laboratories and Prime Computer and has developed and launched more than 15 software products.This pre-conference session will provide an in-depth view of newer manufacturing management initiatives including CPFR®, lean manufacturing, demand driven manufacturing, collaborative manufacturing, the digital enterprise and optimized regulatory compliance.  The instructor will then show how BPM can be used to most effectively meet the objectives of these initiatives by connecting information resources across the plant, the enterprise and the value chain.  This program will give you the ability to identify opportunities and implement tools that address real business issues and enterprise directives.