With more than 35,000 attendees and hundreds of sessions, NRF Retail’s BIG Show last week was the don’t-miss event of the season. The Bamboo Rose team was there in force promoting our latest program, Live on Day One with PLM and Sourcing (seriously, you can go live on the first day) and catching up with many of our customers on the show floor. Here’s the two-minute recap:
The buzz on the floor: Tech, tech and more tech
It’s no surprise that retail technology continues to dominate the spotlight with innovations like voice activation, virtual reality and machine learning pushing the industry into the future. Whether on the customer or product side, everything is going digital – which means both retailers and vendors have to adapt in order to keep up in the New Retail Economy. Customer experience matters now more than ever, and retailers are integrating everything from mobile innovation to warehouse technology to provide a seamless experience.
Retail revolutionaries
It was a jam-packed three days, and many of our innovative customers were featured for their forward-thinking initiatives, including reps from Kohl’s, Nordstrom, Walgreens, Sainsbury’s Argos, Levi Strauss & Co., lululemon and Tractor Supply Company. We were particularly happy for Kevin Hofmann, CMO and President-Online at The Home Depot, who was honored by the NRF Foundation as a Power Player on The List, a selection of executives shaping the future of the retail industry.
PLM is dead (yep, we said it)
I got a bit of flak for this the past couple of months for saying this and writing it. PLM isn’t really dead, of course. But the the old approach to PLM – with long implementation times and a point solution mentality – is, in my humble opinion. This became clear that it wasn’t just my opinion, as well, when we went back to our customers to check in – why did you pick Bamboo Rose? What was the outcome? It was as simple as – “change or fail.”
Old PLM is being replaced by a new approach to PLM that spurs innovation earlier in the process. It’s cloud-based, Saas. It’s focused on building community. With programs like our new Live on Day One, Bamboo Rose is stripping weeks out of the design process and showing retailers an 85 percent reduction in sampling costs. The new approach to PLM encourages communication early on without compromising the benefits of traditional PLM software.
As always, NRF Retail’s BIG Show was fruitful and interesting, and provided us with a great venue to share and collaborate with others in our space. We’re already looking forward to next year.
Want to hear more about Live on Day One? Talk to one of our experts.