I am excited to announce my new position as Senior Analyst at RIBA Retail. RIBA specializes in providing data integration services for Retail and has been a valued partner of Aptos for many years. In moving from Aptos, where I spent over 20 years as a Senior Director of Product Development, I knew RIBA was the right fit for me to continue applying all the skills and knowledge I had acquired during my tenure there.
Over the past few years, I had been heavily involved in the implementation and integration of OMS. Working with many retailers to help them connect their OMS for true unified commerce, I came to understand the significant role OMS plays in the world of digital retail. Winners will master OMS integration at all levels – data, system, and process. Losers will not. Now is the time to finally give, as RIBA often says, integration the attention it deserves. I want to lead the charge as part of RIBA’s broader vision to bring a whole new set of OMS data integration services to unified commerce retailers.
I have known and admired Rick Boretsky for more than two decades, dating way back in the 90s when we worked together at STS. Rick’s company, RIBA, has done a marvelous job performing hundreds of complex integration projects without the usual delays, cost overruns, and disruptions that retailers had previously come to expect with integration. I viewed RIBA as an ideal partner to really make a difference with OMS integration in the same way they had been doing with ERP for all these years.
RIBA brings all the data integration tools and know-how. And I bring the vision and hands-on experience on how to implement/integrate OMS to realize the full potential of digital retailing. Our comprehensive OMS integration services extend from the strategic to the operational. We look forward to working together through many challenging OMS integration projects.
Here are the OMS Data Integration Services we now deliver:
Strategic
Assessment: We conduct a brief on site to assess clients’ OMS implementation. In our findings, we answer two vital questions: 1) Where does the integration fall short of evolving industry standards? and 2) What’s the fix? We then produce far-sighted recommendations.
Planning: We work with the client and, optionally, the software vendor to devise a comprehensive plan to drive OMS into the heart of our client’s information systems. The plan addresses issues about architecture, transformation, process review, testing, and deployment.
Attribution: We’ll look at OMS through the lens of Business Intelligence to find juicy tidbits of information about the customer journey. Attribution is the key to knowledge but is all too often neglected.
Tactical
Vendor Selection. The software market has produced dozens of OMS providers. Many retailers are now considering a change for their next generation of digital services. We can help take you through this vendor selection.
Architecture. Unfortunately, older batch systems do not coexist well with the 24/7, real-time world of digital retailing. RIBA’s tools and experience can lead retailers to more robust architectural approaches based on near real-time services and hub/spoke data management.
Implementation
Data transformation. For years, RIBA’s strength has been to perform data transformations across all conceivable retail use cases. Our tools enable us to perform this work at far less cost and uncertainty than usual.
Testing. We found that it is very complex to replicate a testing environment with all the possible data flows of a typical OMS integration. Our involvement ensures that clients take all reasonable precautions in setting up testing resources and protocols.
Extensions. Many retailers want to aggressively extend their order management reach to new channels from new supply chains and customer touchpoints. Our services lend themselves to such extensions without the burden of risk and uncertainty.
Operational
Reporting. Want to know how your orders are being processed, filled, and lost, as well as the many other KPIs that are now critical to any unified commerce operation? RIBA can help build the reports your digital commerce team craves.
Monitoring. Often it is necessary in any OMS implementation to identify inconsistencies and anomalies between the multiple data sources. We will install the necessary dashboards to monitor progression and identify issues and performance bottlenecks.
