I attended the Honeywell Brick and Mortar – But No Walls event at the Radisson Blu Hotel. It was interesting for two reasons. One I met up with some of my client’s clients; some of which I didn’t even know were using our software. It was very valuable to get their perspective on the utility of our solution. Secondly I was interested in Honeywell’s drive for setting up a think tank to bring together some of their larger retail clients to share solutions to the challenges they face.
The additional organizational load associated with providing an online ecommerce sales platform was something I hadn’t fully considered. For example in a typical retail transaction a client browses through the shop, picks some items and pays for them. The picking and fulfillment effort is done by the client. Contrast that with the ecommerce sales where the organization now has to pick, organize the logistics for delivery and returns – all without introducing additional costs to cover the extra work required. It’s obvious but fundamental cost – so efficiency is essential to prevent these costs from affecting the bottom line.
From a rugged device point of view, they spoke quite a bit about Honeywell’s hardware-as-a-service offering. We have spent quite a bit of time with the new EDA51 and I think that’s going to come in at a great price point for the South African marker.
