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Change is a constant in life and a given with all businesses and dynamic industries. No industry has experienced such a dramatic transformation more than the retail industry. In 2023, pandemic-era changes altered buying patterns, leading to an eCommerce explosion that has impacted all aspects of the retail industry as well as other industries, particularly manufacturing and distribution.
Understanding and adapting to change can be challenging, but helping attendees successfully pivot in response to constant changes is what Acumatica Summit is all about. That’s why Acumatica Summit 2024 has evolved from past events and is providing attendees with more time, resources, information, and contacts to help you manage the changes that are shaping the current business landscape.
There are several opportunities to connect with fellow customers and partners who operate in your industry area as well as industry experts. Additionally, if you are attending Summit 2024, you can take advantage of our nearly 100 Acumatica Summit sessions, which specifically address how technology can help you manage the industry-specific issues you face.
We highlighted these expanded opportunities and how they will impact Acumatica Community members within the construction, manufacturing, and distribution industries in the first three articles of our five-article Acumatica Summit 2024 series, and in the fourth installment of our series, we’re putting the spotlight on the retail industry.
What’s Happening in the Retail Industry and at Acumatica Summit 2024
Recently, I wrote several articles on what’s happening in the retail industry. To put it simply, the last several years have seen a significant change in the retail landscape, with consumers now having the ability to buy their goods and services in multiple ways (e.g., in store and online). And today’s consumers expect—whether they’re buying for personal or professional reasons—an easy, hiccup-free experience.
The demand for seamless shopping (also known as omnichannel commerce, where researching, buying, and returning items can be done via one or all shopping methods without skipping a beat) has ushered in a few retail trends. For instance, direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, which is the direct engagement of consumers online, has grown from an exciting option to an expected necessity. Brands like Native, a body care retailer, marketed and sold its aluminum-free deodorant solely online and in two years of launching, reached $100 million in revenue.
Other digital native brands took notice and quickly followed suit. But just as we’ve discussed, things evolve, and DTC businesses adopted new strategies to continue attracting customers, including going back to opening physical, pop-up stores—but opening them in unique locations, such as empty department stores, malls, and even restaurants.
I write about these and other trends in “The State of Retail in 2023,” but Summit is also a place where many of these emerging industry trends are surfaced and discussed. It provides forums to share best practices and obtain a deeper understanding of the trends that are shaping the retail industry today.
Summit’s mainstage sessions feature Acumatica executives offering expert insights into how technology is advancing and helping companies within every industry become more competitive and succeed in today’s digital marketplace. During the keynote sessions, Customers will share their stories of the ways technology—especially Acumatica’s award-winning cloud ERP software—has positively influenced their ability to grow and scale.
Product-focused keynotes will also feature industry-specific information, customer stories and testimonials, and the latest feature updates that apply to retailers. The Acumatica Marketplace will showcase ISV applications that provide additional features and capabilities that are geared toward companies in the retail industry.
Breakout Sessions for Retailers
If the keynote and product sessions and the Marketplace weren’t enough, Acumatica Summit 2024 is offering a whopping 15 Acumatica Summit sessions specifically tailored to address the needs and interests of retailers. This is an unheard of opportunity to witness firsthand the features and capabilities provided by Acumatica Retail Edition, one of our industry-specific solutions that are tailored to the particular needs of where organizations work.
The breakout sessions cover topics that are core to the functioning of a retail business, including:
- Online branding and “headless commerce.”
- Creating dashboards and reports for retail specific data.
- Retail tax accounting.
- Retail inventory management.
- Retail synchronization challenges.
These topics and more will be delivered through three different types of sessions: Informational, Interactive, and Focused Learning.
In the Informational sessions, you’ll hear the latest retail industry trends, product details, feature specifics and issue background specifically designed to increase your knowledge of Acumatica and understanding of technology. Here’s an example session:
Best Practices for Collaboration between VARs and Digital Agencies. New consumer purchasing practices and the rapidly evolving retail landscape present opportunities for VARs to forge productive, profitable partnerships with Digital Agencies. This session will cover how Digital Agencies optimize the front office, including website design, branding and identity, and customer experiences. Attendees will hear from a VAR and Digital Agency with a successful working relationship and learn their strategies for going to market, finding joint prospects, implementing complex projects, and helping customers transition into the new digital age.
Interactive sessions are structured for participant engagement and the exchange of ideas, opinions and information, typically featuring a panel, group discussion, or roundtable format. They provide a platform for presenters and participants to share their insights and experiences and respond to questions. One of the Interactive sessions is Order Orchestration: Business Growth: Tips and Tricks for Optimizing Your Retail Business Operation:
Successful Retailers and Digital Native D2C brands follow similar patterns to scale and grow. This interactive session featuring roundtable discussions will cover those common factors, analyze the structure of that growth track, and mark critical milestones. It will also focus on how Acumatica’s modern cloud technology can support expanding businesses through each stage of growth.
Focused Learning sessions take deep dives into common and sometimes complex business process requirements, covering scenarios and designed to alleviate business pain points. The Focused Learning session, Commerce Connectors: Mapping and Filtering Data, will be a popular session discussing the following:
Acumatica’s Commerce Connectors include many features right out of the box, and native integrations have been built to resolve other common Retail challenges. However, because every business is different and may have special requirements for presenting product information, collecting customer information, or importing orders, some companies may need to map unique data or filter data before processing it.
In this session, attendees will see an overview of the Acumatica Commerce Connectors Entities Window and learn:
- Which entities have which capabilities out of the box.
- How to update the sync direction of an entity, add customer fields to an entity, and filter data based on entity settings.
- How to use the sync formula tool to add advanced filters.
Retailers Can Expect Learning, Connecting, and Fun at Acumatica Summit 2024
The Summit Agenda is jam packed with retailer-specific sessions, each one designed with your needs, questions, and future in mind. If you haven’t yet registered and are planning to, I highly recommend you do it right away. These sessions fill up fast, and you won’t want to miss out on the expanded opportunities available to grow your cloud ERP knowledge and, ultimately, your business’s success at Acumatica Summit 2024.
Plus, you’ll get to enjoy the stimulating Vegas atmosphere balanced by the many restorative amenities offered by the Wynn Las Vegas. It’s the perfect time and place to learn, connect, and have fun, and we can’t wait for you to experience all that Summit has to offer.
For any questions, contact the event team at support@acumaticaevents.com. And for any questions about our cloud ERP software, contact our team today.
