NRF 2009

So, we all survived our New York trip to the National Retail Federation trade show called “NRF”. With all the doom and gloom we still managed to meet with many of our customers and enjoy at least one nice dinner. The overall attendance seemed to be way down from last year but we all expected this with so many retailers having a dismal holiday sales season. There weren’t many exciting technology announcements that generated much buzz at the show; in fact many vendors passed the time by meeting up with old friends within the industry. The key messages from retail customers was focus on how to take cost out of our supply chain using mobile solutions. They all said that doing more with less was going to be the mantra for 2009. It appears that many budgets will be frozen and that internally many departments will be fighting to get key projects funded. So the return on investment better be solid. There was a significant desire to figure out how to drive process efficiencies and different financing solutions to deliver these mobile solutions in 2009.
Gina Daniel-Lee