Retailers: boost your digital transformation and your sales animation
Who is Thomas Rollot ?
Thomas first joined CEGID 's Retail BU in customer support and then very quickly moved on to the position of consultant. CEGID is a major player in the digital transformation of companies, and offers them cloud services and management software.
Then, Thomas was application manager and then CIO at The Kooples, a French high-end ready-to-wear brand.
Based on these experiences, Thomas founded Umperio and offers his expertise in transitional CIO, retail project management, and auditing.
What do you remember from your experience as a CEGID consultant?
"Understanding the business challenges of retail".
At CEGID, I quickly gained skills in a climate of mutual trust. This experience allowed me to understand the needs of the retail industry in terms of digitalization and sales animation. Over the years, CEGID has developed a great deal of expertise in retail, from product manufacturing to point of sale management, thanks to numerous large-scale projects in France and Europe, which have enabled CEGID to forge close ties with the sector's managers and IT directors. CEGID has a modern approach to the retail sector, with a value proposition in terms of innovation, which can be discovered through a 3D visit of their "Innovation Store".
What was your experience as CIO of The Kooples?
"An acceleration of roadmaps"
Managers want quick results, on more and more subjects, to be addressed in a shorter and shorter time. The result? Professionals no longer have the time to do in-depth analysis and serious PPR.
"The CIO must have a keen business eye"
Today, the CIO can no longer just be the project manager for IT projects. He must be able to discern the indicators that make sense for his business and that present an interesting ROI. They must therefore be able to prioritize or even reject projects that do not meet these criteria, in order to carry out the ones they have selected. From then on, the CIO positions himself as a Business Partner: he cultivates cross-functional skills, to understand and link the various business lines.
"Setting up a solution like Objow is very quick".
Unlike ERP software, for example, a SaaS solution like Objow is simple to set up, the process is much less cumbersome and the risk very limited.
To what extent has the role of the CIO evolved in recent years?
"Today, the CIO validates the investment and can be a force of proposal"
The role of the CIO has changed a lot in retail and this change is also explained by the emergence of SaaS solutions.
Before, the CIO centralized all IT projects: benchmarking, specifications, implementation, and he spent 30% of his time on ERP implementation.
Today, the CIO receives BU managers who have identified a need or a tool and who have already done a benchmark. The CIO validates the seriousness of the software and the investment. He spends less time on software implementation, and can therefore take a wait-and-see attitude towards the projects that are submitted to him, or on the contrary, be proactive if he has the business skills.
What are the conditions for a successful IT project and deployment?
"You need an agile, expert and available team. Otherwise, you have to choose to outsource."
On technical or "business" bricks, it is wise to entrust the implementation of a software to experts, who apply good project management practices: Needs analysis; Launch and roadmap; Parameterization; Interfaces; Acceptance; Transfer of skills & Training; Implementation; Hypercare; Project management and follow-up.
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What led you to create Umperio?
"Retail players must challenge their digital projects"
I have noticed that the health crisis has accelerated the roadmaps of retail companies: customers are more and more in a hurry, and change brands more and more. Retailers must therefore succeed in capturing customers and keeping them. To do this, they must analyze the growth prospects and their 3-5 year trajectory. They have to challenge their projects: cancel the less relevant ones, add more adapted ones. For the implementation, you can't invent it, you need to know the processes in retail, with a service that starts with an audit with the managers and goes down to the architecture. The first hurdle is upstream: for companies that want to accelerate their digital transition, it is difficult to carry out a serious benchmark in a limited time. In any case, there is certainly a strong need for digital sales animation tools in retail.
How does the Objow solution meet the needs of the retail industry?
"Objow meets the business and technical needs of the retail sector".
Objow is a Saas solution that's quick and easy to implement. What's more, Objow meets the "business" needs of the retail sector, with goal-setting and day-to-day management of sales teams that are perfectly suited to this sector. With gamification elements such as points, badges, rankings, challenges, rewards, notifications, etc., Objow is particularly well-suited to animating remote teams, far from head office, who demand fun tools. Last but not least, Objow meets the technical needs of retail: it's a mobile, intuitive solution that replaces Excel files and area managers' dashboards.
Would you recommend Objow to your network? Why or why not?
"More than a publisher, Objow has a partner relationship with its customers."
Yes, I'd recommend Objow to anyone in the retail sector, because it's the perfect solution for their needs, especially as the Objow team is agile and close to its customers, including major accounts. More than a supplier, Objow is a partner to its customers, helping them to achieve their objectives. The team understands that the human factor is paramount when it comes to implementing and operating a new tool.
