The link below will take you to my book on supermarket applications.
Most of my supermarket career has been with A&P Food Stores. The nineties at A&P were very exciting as we went on an acquisition binge in both the United States and Canada. I was put in charge of converting each of these acquisitions to the A&P systems. This led to the development of the “Acquisition Integration Application”. It enable us to keep development plans on track while also integrating all these new companies. The AIA was built around a common set of interface files (schema’s) that could be used to prepare each new acquisition for integration.
I had the opportunity to “get inside” the applications of more than six regional retailers. This gave me the unique opportunity to learn how different organizations had solved common industry challenges. It also gave me an understanding of the similarity between organizations. I could see what made individual companies successful and what had held back others. My fundamental conclusion was that while each organization had unique characteristics there was an overwhelming similarity in the way they operated. But there is also a particularly unique characteristic to supermarket retail, nowhere else is so much time spent on product transformation at store level.
During the 21st Century, retail organizations have turned more and more to outside suppliers for software applications. Whether it means turning to an SaaS solution hosted in the Cloud or integrating an outside supplier into an organizations own systems, the emphasis on in-house development has declined. But many vendors offering retail solutions don’t seem to understand the unique characteristics of Supermarkets. That is the first reason for this book. The second reason I wrote this book is to get supermarket management to begin thinking about how their business is going to change because of technology. People are often comfortable with the way they have always done things, a person comes into an organization, learns their role, and falls into a routine. The timeline for technology changes has sped up to the point where organizations must expect their environment to change several times during a person's career. Management must recognize the changes that are coming from technology so they can plan for their implementation. This is especially true in the large retail organization, where rollout of new technology to all stores can take significant length of time. Organizations must understand what technologies can be phased in and what technologies are so disruptive that they create a crticial advantage for the early adopters.
Enjoy the Book …… This is my first draft ...... Use the contact link to provide feedback …
Supermarket Applications