From the Principal’s Office The forecast for the holiday season in retailing is not good, except for a couple of individual retailers who expect to buck what Morgan Stanley has predicted as an almost flat season.  Meanwhile, all the gloom notwithstanding, the stock market is at an all-time high (indicating good things for 6 months […]

From the Principal’s Office The economy improves, albeit slowly.  Many retailers are seriously undertaking information systems initiatives, some avant-garde; some are replacing aging systems due to growth, discontinued support, or disenchantment with their current solutions provider.  There is activity in the marketplace.  I thought I would tackle a topic near and dear to every IS […]

From the Principal’s Office Strategic Partner Bob Berger came up with a neat little approach to combining footprint reduction with IT to keep the customer satisfied while reducing operating overhead and fighting the competition.  Give it a read. Bob Amster – Principal, RTG Why Satellite Stores are Especially Advantageous in Today’s Economy By Bob Berger […]

From the Principal’s Office In the last few years I have come to realize that retailers have at their disposal an often underutilized tool that can improve productivity and save significant amounts of money; re-training the user community on how to use existing software assets.- Bob Amster – Principal, RTG   We work with all […]

A recent experience with a 2-year-old application for smart phones caused me to ponder the payment landscape and the future need to carry a wallet.  The application I found is called KeyRing, and I thought it was the greatest simple app.  Read on… What do both of these animals have in common?  They are both bred […]

From the Principal’s Office The buzzwords during and after the NRF Show are: mobility solutions, tablets, social media, cloud computing, technologies with some of which RTG has some experience.– Bob Amster – Principal, RTG   I didn’t see any excitement about two technologies that have been around a few years and I have always thought […]

From the Principal’s Office We have been garnering some ‘mobility’ expertise in the way of ‘tablet-like’ devices which we wanted to briefly share with you. Robert Lawson has managed two projects involving the tablet concept in the retail store and he wrote about it. Enjoy the article! We’ll see you at the NRF Annual Conference. […]

From the Principal’s Office One of Amster’s pet peeves.  Read on and see if you agree. Bob Amster – Principal, RTG As a long-time consultant to the retail industry, I often encounter a retail company where little or nothing gets done to improve operations. Observations are made, everyone seems to know what is wrong with […]

From the Principal’s Office We’re into the new year, the NRF Conference is now over, and we are all looking at a prosperous 2010.  Recovery appears to be on the way, but it will be very gradual.  There will be no spikes in economic activity this year.  The industry is in for more consolidation.  I […]