Top Retailers’ View on
Emerging Customer
Technology Trends
Boston Retail Partners
14th Annual POS Benchmarking Survey
Ken Morris
Principal
Boston Retail Partners
Mr. Morris has worked in retail for 40 years and most recently was CEO & President of LakeWest Group. He is
the former founder and owner of KMG Solutions, a software company that developed and marketed
business process management solutions to the retail industry. Prior to founding KMG solutions, Mr. Morris
was the founder and CEO of CFT Consulting, which was dedicated to serving retailers and their supply-chain
partners for their technology needs.
Mr. Morris also founded, nurtured and sold a software development firm that markets enterprise software to
the retail community. The software, called XBR, is deployed in over 250 retailers worldwide. His experience
includes strategy, selection, development and deployment of e-commerce, catalog, and traditional retail
solutions for merchandising, in-store, finance, distribution, and logistics functions. He was IS Vice President
at Lord and Taylor (a Division of the May Company) in New York and Filene's (a Division of Federated
Department Stores) in Boston. He has also held various positions at Talbot’s, Stop & Shop Supermarkets,
Grossman's (Home Improvement), Sears, and was Director of the New England Retail Technology Practice for
Deloitte & Touche.
Josh Jewett
CIO
Family Dollar
Mr. Jewett has strategic and operational responsibility for all aspects of Information Technology for this $9.6 Billion
national discount retailer. He leads a team that designs, develops, deploys, and supports all hardware, software,
networking, and telecommunications for all of Family Dollar’s stores, regional offices, distribution centers, corporate
campus, several hundred mobile employees, and internet presence. Mr. Jewett is also responsible for assuring the
Information Technology department and its investments in technology align with, support, and deliver the company’s
vision to be the best small-format convenience and value retailer serving the needs of families in our neighborhoods.
While in this capacity, Mr. Jewett has expanded the capacity of the IT function through multinational, strategic
partnerships designed to augment both resources and skills, provide cost and process efficiencies through a global
delivery model, and deliver several significant technological achievements for the company. He and his team have
overseen the design, development, and implementation of a new store systems architecture for all 7,600 plus retail
locations in 45 states, several new financial and global supply chain management components, an enterprise data
warehouse, and the variety of other solutions required to enable the chain to augment its store count and revenue
considerably.
Prior to his employment by Family Dollar Stores, Inc., Mr. Jewett served as Senior Director for Answerthink, Inc., an
international management consulting firm. Mr. Jewett earned a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College.
Ed Clary
CIO
Haverty Furniture
Ed heads up both the Technical and Distribution operations and strategy for Havertys, a 127 year old home
furnishing retailer. Ed is responsible for Information Technology, Distribution, Home Delivery and Customer
Service and is a member of Havertys Management Committee. Havertys operates 122 stores in 22 primarily
southeastern states. Havertys IT provides applications that span POS, warehousing, distribution, logistics,
supply chain, eCommerce and customer service. Havertys is traded on the NYSE under the symbol HVT.
Most recently, Havertys has installed new point of purchase solutions that is browser based and is
complimented with a salesperson iPad application. Ed is a member of the IBM Power Systems Board of
Advisors, ATT Global Retail Advisory Council and a member of the Cisco Global Retail Advisory Board. He was
a finalist for the 2011 Georgia CIO of the year award. Previously, Ed served an eight-year tenure with the
Macy’s South division of R.H. Macy and Company in positions in finance and information technology. Ed
received a Bachelor of Science in business administration with a dual concentration in finance and
information systems from Appalachian State University. He received a Master of Business Information
Systems from Georgia State University.
Steve Smith
CIO
TBC Corporation
Steve Smith is Senior Vice President and CIO for TBC Corporation. Steve oversees all aspects of technology for TBC
Corporation to include Application Development, Infrastructure Services, Information Security, eCommerce and
Business Intelligence. TBC is a $3.4 B retailer of tires and automotive services under the Midas, NTB, and Big O brands
as well as a wholesaler of tires under the Treadways, Carroll and TBC brands.
Prior to joining TBC Corporation, Steve served in numerous leadership roles at EDS, Sabre and Travelport. Steve’s most
recent roles were CIO at AutoTrader.com, Idearc Media and Travelport. In these roles Steve collaborated and led the
technology efforts around some of the web’s most known brands to include AutoTrader.com, Orbitz.com, and many
others.
Steve has worked across the globe, living and working in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland with
assignments that have taken him to over 36 countries. Steve started his career with the US Army rising to the rank of
Captain. Steve served in various capacities eventually closing his active duty career as a paratrooper with the 18th
Airborne Corps. Steve is a graduate of Syracuse University and conducted work on a Master’s in Public Administration
from the State University of NY at Binghamton and a Masters in International Business Management from
Georgetown University.
14th Annual POS Benchmarking Survey
• Surveyed more than 500
North American retailers
in October – December
2012
• Specialty retailers
account for more than
half of respondents
The Evolution of Retail
Before 1980s
Distributed POS
model
• Basic cash
register and cash
drawer
The Future
Omni channel
retail puts it in
the customer’s
hands
The Customer is the Center of the Universe
Social Media
Customers now have
the freedom to
Adver sing
achieve their goals
throughout the
shopping process… Signage
Website
Email
Apps
Kiosk
Mobile
Website
Checkout
Employees
SMS
Catalog
Direct Mail
…using
whichever
channels and touch
points they prefer.
Overall POS Plans
Customer-Facing Mobile Services
Mobile Strategy Drivers
Overall POS Plans
Current POS Hardware
2014 POS Hardware
POS Platform Expansion
Overall POS Plans
Retail Market Dynamics
1st Wave
2nd Wave
Result
POS Software Implementations
10. What vendor so ware does your company
currently use for tradi onal point-of-sale?
Epicor (CRS, NSB)
18.0%
SAP (Triversity)
18.0%
MICROS Retail (Datavantage,
Torex)
15.0%
12.5%
Toshiba (IBM)
10.0%
Retalix (Cornell-Mayo)
7.5%
Fujitsu
5.3%
Other
4.5%
Jesta I.S.
3.3%
Proprietary/Homegrown
JDA (Red Prairie)
PCMS
Microso
2.8%
2.4%
2.0%
Overall POS Plans
Store Network Services
19. Please indicate what services your company
currently uses your store network for:
VoIP
48.1%
POTS
48.1%
Wireless back-up
44.4%
Call center
37.0%
Fax machine
33.3%
Wi-Fi customer use
PBX in the cloud
Traffic heatmaps
19.0%
7.4%
3.7%
POS Centralization
Overall POS Plans
Operating Systems
16. What opera ng system does your organiza on
currently use on your POS hardware?
Windows XP
33%
Windows Embedded
19%
Android
2%
POSReady 7
13%
MS-DOS
2%
Apple iOS
4%
POSReady 2009
8%
Linux
4%
IBM 4690
9%
Other
6%
Hardware Vendors
11. What vendor hardware does your company
currently use for its tradi onal point-of-sale?
Toshiba/IBM
39%
Dell
17%
Other
14%
HP
14%
NCR
11%
Fujitsu
11%
Wincor Nixdorf
6%
Epson
3%
DigiPOS
3%
For more information:
Ken Morris’ email address:
kmorris@bostonretailpartners.com
Boston Retail Partners’
14th Annual POS Benchmarking Survey
is now available at
www.bostonretailpartners.com.