The Platform

Why We Built It

Customers purchase items through many channels – in-store POS, kiosk, online, mobile devices, call center, and soon interactive TV. This poses a challenge to the retailer to make all these channels available quickly and efficiently, with consistent content (products, prices, promotions). Any updates to content must be promulgated across all channels immediately, and company executives need up-to-the-minute company-wide information on sales and inventory results to react immediately (e.g., tweak special promotions, purchase additional inventory to prevent stockout).

What It Is

The VisionmaxRetail Retail-in-the-Cloud software provides the major functions needed by a retail store to run its operations. Created by Visionmax Solutions Inc. (VisionMAX) the software is targeted at retail chains from 20 to 1,000 stores. It typically runs in “the cloud” (computer infrastructure provided by companies including IBM), thereby eliminating the need for a retail company to invest in new systems hardware to run the system and the resources to keep it running (monitoring, updates, load balancing, expansions).

The Retail-in-the-Cloud solution includes pre-developed software modules to support a variety of retail business functions including point-of-sale, administration, accounting/financial, billing, inventory management, infrastructure, customer relationship management and marketing, support/training, and sales reporting.

The software runs in a web browser and is provided on a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) basis. This allows the retailer to avoid a large upfront cost to purchase the software, as payments are made on a monthly basis tied to the number of stores running the software. The single monthly fee (Operating Expense, rather than Capital Expense) covers the software license, upgrades, maintenance and support, and the cost to run on the cloud infrastructure.

Components

The Retail in the Cloud (RIC) software suite is organized into separate modules that link together. We recognize that the retailer may not wish to use each one initially, but they are available for future activation. VisionMAX, as a software systems integrator, is available to customize the software and integrate it into a retailer’s existing systems infrastructure.

 

The software modules include the following:

Catalog, Pricing, SKU Hierarchy, Assortment Management

Catalog to POS Mapping; Browser-based layout tools

CRM – manage your customer profile and see history of customer across chain

Standalone/offline POS and SaaS POS running in a browser

Presentation delivery channels (Facebook/Social Media Integration; Virtual Personal Stylist Magic Mirror; VisionmaxRetail eCommerce Engine; Media Integration Platform Streaming Video; iPhone Mobile Commerce; Android VPS Controller; IPTV/Game Console/TV Console)

Admin and Reporting (Login portal; Role-based Security; Real-Time Dashboards; Ad-hoc and Fixed Reports)

Queue Management / Digital Signage

Training/Certification/Help Ticket Creation