Our team recently had the chance to attend the Multichannel Merchant Operations Summit in Cincinnati. From April 12-14, the fifth annual Operations Summit allowed direct-to-consumer and omnichannel operations to build their professional networks, elevate their customer experience, and learn from industry leaders.
For Dave Balser, JD Edwards Delivery Director for Briteskies, the overriding theme of the event was omnichannel fulfillment.
“Omnichannel fulfillment is a lot more complicated than I originally understood, especially coming from a traditional warehouse fulfillment model,” said Dave. “The traditional model is pretty straightforward, but when you start including all of these other factors, it becomes harder to control.”
Omnichannel retailing involves using a variety of channels in a shopping experience, including retail and online stores, mobile apps, EDI, traditional sales order entry methods, and any other method of transacting with a customer both internationally and domestically. Regardless of the source of the order, omnichannel fulfillment requires meeting the customer’s expectations when filling their order. Within that expectation is a host of other prioritizations: which orders get picked when and from where? How can you minimize cost and maximize efficiency?
Operations Summit addressed all of these concerns and more with their informative sessions, roundtable discussions, and vendor showcase.
The sessions themselves were extremely educational and seemed to focus mostly on strategies for multichannel merchants. Some were strategic discussions of overall best practices, whereas others were very specific to certain business processes, covering everything from how to manage those processes to what trends are emerging.
The roundtables were a point of interest for Bill Onion, Managing Director of Briteskies.
“The organizers put together roundtables during meals, where the purpose was to facilitate a conversation at the table about a particular topic. It was great for networking and peer-to-peer conversation,” he said.
The vendor showcase was another cool part of the event for Bill. It was a great place to meet and learn from other vendors and find out what new technologies and developments are hitting the industry.
This event was perfect for organizations with direct responsibility for order fulfillment, which can include anything from warehousing, to pick/pack/ship, to transportation. If it falls between order creation and order completion, the Operations Summit covered it.
If that sounds right up your alley, be sure to mark your calendars for next year’s Operations Summit with Multichannel Merchant March 27-29 in Pittsburgh.
Did you attend this year’s event? We’d love to hear what you thought! Leave a comment or send us a tweet.
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