It's
about time: Microsoft turns its attention to the technological needs
of mid-sized retailers
by Alan Zisman (c) 1995 First published
in Business in
Vancouver , Issue #319 December 5, 1995 High Tech
Office
column
If you
believe the number
crunchers, small businesses provide much of the growth and new jobs
in Canada. Still, if you're connected to a small to mid-sized business,
you may justifiably wonder if the high tech industries have tended
to overlook your existence. Big corporate accounts get lots of
attention,
from both hardware and software providers. In the past few years,
there's also been some attention to home-based businesses and
telecommuters,
with the introduction of new product categories such as multifunction
printer/copier/scanner/fax machines.
There are
some indications,
however, that things may be changing for those small to mid-sized
companies that make up 75 per cent of all businesses in Canada. Take
software giant Microsoft Canada, for example. After initially
aiming products such as Back Office and Windows NT Server at the big
business user, it has turned its attention to the thousands of
businesses
in between, particularly those involved in retail operations. The
first focus for this attention is here in B.C. Together with the Retail
Merchants' Association of B.C., Microsoft has recently completed an
11-city tour, trying to show retailers how improvements in computer
hardware and software can benefit them. Areas the company touched on
included point-of-sale technology, inventory control, database
marketing, customer service, accounting, and staff management. Speaking
in the tour, which involved more than 600 retailers province-wide, was
Graham Clark, Microsoft's worldwide retail manager. Clark's largest
audience was in Vancouver, where 120 retailers attended a seminar.
Microsoft
is using B.C.
as its test bed, and is experimenting with working with trade
organizations
here before taking the approach Canada-wide, and eventually into the
U.S. Microsoft didn't make any earth-shaking product announcements,
preferring instead to focus on how the company's existing NT Server
and BackOffice products, together with third-party products, can
benefit
small to medium-sized retailers. Microsoft hopes to convince merchants
that using its products will help them achieve better inventory control
and lead to automated product ordering, which means less unsold stock
on hand tying up space and capital.
Electronic
Data Exchange
will speed orders while reducing paper forms. Using relational database
technology will allow merchants to compile more information on
customers,
allowing retailers to, for example, target customers who should be
made aware of new product lines.
With
better support
and service from technology providers such as Microsoft, the hope
is that smaller retailers can put themselves in a stronger position
than their larger competitors because they're better able to respond
to changing customer demand.
For
example, Clark points
out that creating a 'virtual store' on the Internet can put small
retailers on an even footing with the big guys: on the 'Net, all
addresses
start off equal. However, Clark cautions that setting up that virtual
store is, in many ways, similar to starting up a physical shop:
retailers
need to consider demographics ('Net users are predominantly male and,
in many areas, retail customers are predominantly female, for example),
as well as location. There also needs to be a strong merchandising
concept to bring customers to the site, keep their attention, and
get them to return.
Among the
success stories
of retailing on the Internet are a husband-and-wife partnership which
markets chili sauces, and a company selling--of all things--concrete
ducks. Both use the 'Net to secure wide distribution for niche products
(with perhaps a limited customer base) for operations from a physical
location. Selling on the 'Net also permitted each to build a customer
base not hindered by geographical location.
A local
example of a
retailer trying to use new technology is Vancouver's Please Mum.
This children's clothing store, which has 46 locations, is in the
process of implementing a new point-of-sale system, which is made
by Montreal's STS.Neil Muir, the company is looking
forward to improving its executive information systems and being able
to monitor sales of individual product lines in each store. It will
also use the system to receive instant inventories, and to obtain
instant reports
on staffing costs or business efficiency for individual stores,
departments, or for the entire enterprise. They're just beginning to
put this system
in place. (We'll check in on them again in a few months time, to see
if the promises made by technology are paying off--at least for Please
Mum.) Over the next few months, the chain is going to be installing
this system, one department at a time. According to Please Mum's.