Derek O'Carroll
Derek O’Carroll is CEO of Brightpearl, a leading retail management system which helps retailers automate back-office functions and become more efficient. He is responsible for the overall company strategy and for delivering on Brightpearl’s mission to automate retail. During the 1990s he founded Adnet, Ireland’s first online advertising agency building database-driven websites and Vordel, which became a leading provider of XML security solutions. O’Carroll joined Brightpearl from Symantec where he held leadership positions across their enterprise, small business and consumer divisions for the past 10 years. He was also SVP of field sales and marketing for Norton, responsible for $1.7 billion in global revenue.
Monolithic architecture is notoriously inflexible and difficult to scale, as any business that has tried to integrate it with other tech platforms and APIs can attest. Increasingly, brands are growing tired of big bills for relatively small changes, slowdowns and crashes and other disruptions, leading many to explore the option of microservices.
The DTC “discovery to delivery” business model has many advantages. You own the end-to-end customer journey, and develop a direct, digitally-driven and engaging relationship with them. DTC brands using smart technology also have unfiltered insight into customer behavior and real-time data at every step along the process.
Companies that are resistant or slow to change face real threats from the emergence of a new group of DTC brands, boosted by technology, that can deliver a complete end-to-end customer experience. Laggards need to address their operations urgently, or risk being digitally leapfrogged and left behind by the pack of hungry DTCs.
We now exist in a world where technological innovation is empowering customers to expect more from the brands they deal with, to switch when they’re not happy or satisfied, and share their negative experiences online. Here is what retailers need to know in order to keep the millennial generation brand loyal and happy.
While interest in omnichannel is high, execution needs significant improvement. Many retailers, even after years of implementation, still need the right software platform, process and education on how to be effective. And siloed data and legacy systems are no longer sufficient to meet the challenge.
2017 will go down as the year merchants realized there is no longer any margin for error. Retail is moving so fast that automation is essential for survival. Here are five trends that will drive ecommerce excellence this year.
Today, we see some retailers strained beyond repair, closing stores while putting more pressure on suppliers to retain some level of margin and profitability. Here are six key performance indicators that retailers should be able to use to measure specific data at any time.