Featured RSPA Content
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4 Lessons You Should Learn From Resellers At INSPIRE
1/22/2013
You might think you’re having a more productive week in your office compared with the resellers attending the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) annual Inspire winter conference in sunny Curacao. You’re at your desk, in meetings, or on the road while these resellers attend a morning workshop then hit the pool, golf course, or ocean.
But Inspire has proven once again to go beyond the fun and games. The 30 or so resellers attending this event are among the most successful in the retail IT industry, and their actions I’ve observed over the first two days of the conference offer a glimpse why. Resellers who want to improve their business could learn a thing or two – or four – from these VARs
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13 Ways To Practically Apply Ownership Thinking
1/21/2013
Consultant and businessperson Tom Bouwer, the featured speaker at the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) annual Inspire winter conference, doused the 80 attendees at today’s workshop with Ownership Thinking principles. Bouwer is educating executives from retail IT reseller, vendor, and distributor organizations at the Santa Barbara Beach & Golf Resort in Curacao.
Following are three fulcrum principles of Ownership Thinking along with practical advice on how to implement this philosophy in your organization.
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RSPA Inspire 2013: In-Depth Education Sneak Peek
1/18/2013
Business Solutions editor-in-chief Mike Monocello speaks with Tom Bouwer, Ownership Thinking, the keynote presenter at RSPA INSPIRE 2013.
The Ownership Thinking Management System™ is based on 4 primary components: The Right People; The Right Education; The Right Measures; and The Right Incentives. We will go in-depth into each of these areas:
- The Right People: Create an environment that promotes learning and development, while at the same time increasing visibility and accountability. Your best people will excel, and your poorest performers are generally self-selected out by their peers.
- The Right Education: Teach employees the fundamentals of business and finance, how their company makes money and how they add or take away value.
- The Right Measures: Identify the organization’s Key Performance Indicators and teach employees to forecast results in an environment of high visibility and accountability.
- The Right Incentives: Create incentive plans that are self-funding and clearly align employee’s behavior to the organization’s business and financial objectives.
We will be learning and discussing how these concepts can help RSPA members navigate their rapidly changing environment. For example, “how can this model help companies move from an up-front payment model to a SaaS model?” “How can we make our companies more profitable in the face of market convergence?”
One of the keys to this is to eradicate entitlement thinking which is pervasive in companies today. Companies need to replace this entitlement mentality with a culture of earning; a culture of high visibility, accountability and purpose – that purpose being to create wealth where wealth may not have otherwise been created.
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Retail IT Leaders Predict Bright Future For (Some) Resellers
9/17/2012
The Industry Vision Panel discussion at RetailNOW 2012 attracted approximately 450 retail IT executives and covered a wide range of channel topics. This year the panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and a software focused group.
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Top Quotes From RetailNOW 2012: BlueStar’s Steve Cuntz
9/14/2012
Steve Cuntz, the Chairman/CEO of BlueStar, was one of the members of the Industry Vision Panel at RetailNOW 2012, which took place July 29-Aug. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and software-focused group, and was moderated by Jim Roddy, president of Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine. As part of the hardware-focused group, Cuntz shares his thoughts below on many of the different topics impacting the POS industry today that were discussed at the panel.
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Top Quotes From RetailNOW 2012: Ingram Micro's Justin Scopaz
9/14/2012
Justin Scopaz, general manager and VP, Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS division, was one of the members of the Industry Vision Panel at RetailNOW 2012, which took place July 29-Aug. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and software-focused group, and was moderated by Jim Roddy, president of Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine. As part of the hardware-focused group, Scopaz shares his thoughts below on many of the different topics impacting the POS industry today that were discussed at the panel.
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Top Quotes From RetailNOW 2012: HP's Ray Carlin
9/14/2012
Ray Carlin, VP and general manager, HP Retail Store Solutions Global Business Unit, was one of the members of the Industry Vision Panel at RetailNOW 2012, which took place July 29-Aug. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and software-focused group, and was moderated by Jim Roddy, president of Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine. As part of the hardware-focused group, Carlin shares his thoughts below on many of the different topics impacting the POS industry today that were discussed at the panel.
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Top Quotes From RetailNOW 2012: ScanSource's Paul Constantine
9/14/2012
Paul Constantine, president, ScanSource POS/Barcoding, was one of the members of the Industry Vision Panel at RetailNOW 2012, which took place July 29-Aug. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and software-focused group, and was moderated by Jim Roddy, president of Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine. As part of the hardware-focused group, Constantine shares his thoughts below on many of the different topics impacting the POS industry today that were discussed at the panel.
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Top Quotes From RetailNOW 2012: IBM's Ted Clark
9/14/2012
Ted Clark, global business partner channel leader, IBM Retail Store Solutions division (now part of Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions), was one of the members of the Industry Vision Panel at RetailNOW 2012, which took place July 29-Aug. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The panel was divided into two segments, a hardware-focused group and software-focused group, and was moderated by Jim Roddy, president of Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine. As part of the hardware-focused group, Clark shares his thoughts below on many of the different topics impacting the POS industry today that were discussed at the panel.
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Retail IT Channel Leaders Talk Total Solutions
9/6/2012
The concept of resellers providing a total solution to a vertical market – not just a portion of their customers’ technology needs – continues to gain acceptance. The need for VARs to transition to being total solution providers was one of the topics discussed during the Industry Vision Panel discussion at RetailNOW 2012.