The Art of Retail

The Art of Retail event was held on April 17, 2013 at Archeo in Toronto’s Distillery District. This event brought together executives from large Canadian retailers, including Canadian Tire and Shoppers Drug Mart, to educate on how to optimize mobile, social and web technology while growing their businesses. 

Two experienced and prominent speakers offered their insights into the ever-changing world of retail. The first of these speakers was Doug Stephens, a retail expert, founder and President of Retail Prophet, and author of The Retail Revival. Stephens educated attendees on how demographic and technological changes are affecting customer bases, how companies can stay current and how new technologies are transforming how we shop. He also shared his belief in a coming retail revival that is only possible if retailers embrace technology.

The second speaker, Scott Stratten, focused his presentation on the social aspect of retail. Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing and author of the book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.. Stratten is also an expert in Viral, Social, and his own style of Authentic Marketing: Un-Marketing. His presentation covered topics such as why people spread some business content and not others, what fractional reaction means, what tools are useful and what are fads, how to improve corporate social media, and how to transform a negative situation into a positive situation. Stratten told attendees that passionate and knowledgeable frontline employees play a larger role in selling than the logos found on the product itself. He also stressed the importance of social media and creating a product that people want to talk about online. 

In addition to the presentations by Stephens and Stratten, Michael Griffiths, Global Managing Director of Retail at Microsoft led a customer panel featuring Longo’s, Microsoft Store, and Ideaca’s longtime client, LS travel retail North America. The three retailers discussed their ongoing journey to become connected through the implementation of fully-integrated Microsoft retail solutions. They shared their experiences with the audience including, what brought the need for them to adopt a connected and agile solution, lessons learned during the implementation and the improvements in their retail operations since go-live.

Positive feedback from the almost 100 attendees confirmed the success of this event. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics for their partnership in The Art of Retail! For other upcoming Ideaca events visit http://www.ideaca.com/news.

Ideaca's Dynamics AX Tips & Tricks - Product and Production Lead Times

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video helps viewers understand how to see lead times on products and production in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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The Suffering of UX

In our preoccupation with designing the perfect user experience (UX) we fail to comprehend other key components that can play a role in enhancing the overall UX. If we turn a blind eye, then the UX is destined to suffer irrelevant of whether or not we have hammered out the perfect design. Two of the integral components that we must learn to more fully address, along with that flawless UX design itself, are:

Change Management - Change….this small, one syllable word seems to inspire fear among the masses. However, armed with a well-planned change management strategy we do not have to fear this puny little word. An organized change management strategy provides a structured approach to transitioning an organization (people, technology and all) from a current state to a desired future state. Yet, if this strategy is lacking organizations tend to resist and not embrace this change of state, which can lead to a breakdown in the UX and subsequently the implemented solution.

As consultants, we need to be considerate that change is an unnerving task for all involved; therefore, if we strive towards developing a well thought out change management strategy, then we help provide an environment welcoming of change and more supportive of a positive UX. The key to a well thought-out change management strategy lies in launching an effective communications plan that addresses the two most important questions that people need to hear, the “why” are we changing and the “result” or impact on us? In tackling these giants we can help ease organizational fears by providing answers to these daunting questions and allow users the chance to focus explicitly on their solution experience.

Comparing AX 2012 Reporting with Standard SSRS

I have been a Business Intelligence (BI) consultant for a couple of years, and I have worked with the whole suite of Microsoft BI products:  Reporting Services (SSRS), Integration Services (SSIS) and Analysis Services (SSAS).  Dynamics AX 2012; however, was an alien entity to me.  When I was asked to do reporting in Dynamics AX, I thought that since this is a Microsoft product that uses SSRS and a SQL Server database, this should be a pretty standard task based on my experience.  While I was correct from a front-end design point of view, actually getting the data to the report was quite a different task.

The first noticeable difference is the setup.  AX 2012 uses Visual Studio 2010 as opposed to Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) to setup its reports.  BIDS leverages Visual Studio 2008 to launch and run SSRS and you make all of your connections, data sets and parameters directly in the report designer.  Visual Studio 2010 uses a tree view to manage all your data sets and parameters.  These objects must be added, modified or refreshed in the tree to translate over to the report designer. Changes can be made in report designer like in BIDS but they will not translate back to the tree and the changes will not stick.  BIDS creates an RDL file that can be reopened and edited.  With Dynamics AX 2012, everything is stored in the AOT and brought to the local machine by using temporary folders.

Ideaca Dynamics AX Tips & Tricks - Security in AX 2012

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video discusses security in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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An Introduction to PerformancePoint Services Part 1 of 2: OLAP Design

An Introduction to PerformancePoint Services Part 1 of 2: OLAP Design

Introduction

SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and PerformancePoint Services are tools in the Microsoft BI stack used for displaying data. Analysis Services allows analysts to investigate data quickly and dynamically without IT having to write queries. PerformancePoint Services displays high level Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to executives to be viewed at a glance. These tools leverage the data warehouse to users who may not have technical expertise.

The first part of my two part article will focus on the creation of an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) cube as well overview of what is required for the delivery of the solution as a whole. The second part will focus on the aesthetic side of displaying data via the dashboard.

What is required?

In order to get a PerformancePoint dashboard up and running off an Analysis Services Cube (using a relational database instead of a cube is an option but the advantages of using a cube include: faster aggregation of measure values, hierarchies of members, and KPIs) a cube will need to be created. SharePoint 2010 is required in order to create a dashboard using Dashboard Designer. Creating a Business Intelligence site in SharePoint will allow for the download of the Dashboard Designer and the ability to deploy the web parts created in the designer to the SharePoint site. Having SharePoint is also a great way to expose Business Intelligence to users; whether it is reports, PowerPivot models, or complicated Excel files. These components of business intelligence all would benefit by being viewed by analysts.

Ideaca Dynamics AX Tips and Tricks - Workflow

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video discusses 4 new workflow features in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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