The retail world isn’t what it used to be. Where 20 years ago, a consumer might have visited their local mall to go shopping, a multitude of decision factors now contribute to how that person will make a purchase. Is it more easily available online? Is it something that needs to be tried in person? WIll digital advertising sway their focus to a different seller? Retailers, whether online, in-store, or both, now need to be not only literate in sales, marketing, and business, but also in the science and technology of long-term retail solutions.
One company, Proxima360, aims to help businesses that are unsure of where to start with technology to streamline, forecast, and improve their retail solutions. Proxima360 is a team of retail experts who can “envision a product, implement a solution, or blueprint” a retail roadmap. “Every time I am with a retailer, I think about the change I would be able to create internally and externally,” Anil Varghese, CEO of Proxima 360 told Authority Magazine. “A lot of the work we do optimizes the operational process and helps retailers focus on what they do the best, serving their customer.”
Retail Solutions
With the pandemic drastically disrupting retail operations across the globe, it’s never been more important for retailers to optimize and improve their methods. Proxima aims to bring the best solutions to individual businesses based on their unique needs and budgets. They specialize in delivering solutions that offer the best technical products and assist with the implementation of the most productive and cost-effective method. Their solutions include, but are not limited to: inventory allocations, POS and Square (Payments), store merchandise forecasting, e-commerce for mid-market retailers, increased revenue per customer, store payroll tracking, and retail accounting.
Varghese recalled one case study with a sports and outdoors retailer with whom they worked to set up a new system before the holiday season. “We did it by optimizing an algorithm that calculates the optimum units and the sizes that need to be in a specific store, thereby eliminating time-consuming calculations using multiple spreadsheets,” he said. “We had the system implemented before the holiday season and it turned out to be a key contributor for the sales growth during the holidays.”
The Practical and the Technical
Beyond the industry buzzwords, Proxima’s solutions go so far as to ensure the correct color and styles of footwear are appropriately displayed in the storeroom. These solutions are intended to make the day-to-day operations for retail businesses more efficient to achieve long-term results. This is something that sets Proxima360 apart; they don’t just focus on the online, but rather acknowledge that retail still very much operates in the real world, too—despite people often suggesting that online sellers have a monopoly. They insist that proper stockroom and sales floor organization, along with inventory visibility management, is just as important. This also means properly planning labor resources for back rooms to achieve sales floor fulfillment.
Adivino
What if you could tweak your financial forecasting model to match your real-world experience and objectives? That’s the question behind Proxima360’s AI-powered financial planning platform Adivino. They describe it as a fortune-teller for retail businesses, which forecasts cash flow using machine learning. Other features of Adivino include the development of smart payments and collections, and determination of optimal payment and collection strategies to meet financial goals and deadlines—it’s the dashboard solution for databases that already exist.
“With Adivino, we are helping retailers make better decisions by giving them a clearer view of their financial operations,” Varghese told Global FinTech series. “With new upgrades, Adivino is now one of the most powerful financial forecasting tools on the market. Not only do retailers get the intelligence needed to make great sales and inventory decisions, they also get precision cash-flow insights that help drive better financial outcomes.”
Bringing Out the Best in Retailers
It was 1997 when Proxima360 implemented their first Oracle suite in North America, being branded under their current name in 2019 and winning an RILA award for their supply chain initiative. While machine learning is their latest innovation, they’re one of the few companies that can offer a hybrid solution that looks at the overall ecosystem of retail, not just the online. For Varghese, the sole aim of Proxima360 is to offer “creative solutions for complex problems.”
Find out more about Proxima360 here.
