I have been in IT for my entire career, and I love it. Right out of college, after studying computer science at Indiana University, I got my first programming job in a hospital, and I loved that job. I loved writing programs and watching my users’ faces light up when I made their lives just a little easier. I loved a clean compile after days of cleaning up bugs and syntax issues. Yes, I love IT.
Throughout my IT career, I worked in several different industries. I worked in healthcare, insurance, distribution, manufacturing, and retail. Mostly, retail. I held many different technical positions during my time, ranging from the help desk to programmer, and eventually to the top position, called the Chief Information Officer (read that while letting the words echo ceremoniously in your head). The CIO is the big cheese.
Each industry in which I have worked, has its own challenges, and its own rewards. In healthcare for example, it seemed we had endless access to great doctors, nurses, and technicians. I remember once telling a doctor, while eating lunch in the cafeteria that I had a pain in my neck, and he scheduled me to come by that afternoon for a quick exam and x-ray.
On the downside in healthcare, I took the longest elevator ride of my life when I cordially asked a female patient “How are you today?” and after looking at my hospital ID, suit and tie, proceeded to tell me exactly how she felt in disquieting detail. I didn’t know anything about the female anatomy until that day.
While working in distribution, many of the world’s largest manufacturers would bring their products through our warehouses and use our truck lines. Those manufacturers would often show up with hard to get tickets to sporting events and concerts, that I could then give out to my staff. It was a wonderful perk. On the other hand, their shipments and pick-ups would often be late and require us to make last minute changes to shipments to accommodate them, and work late into the evening.
Retail is no different. I have what I would call a love/hate relationship with retail that started when I was 16. One of my first jobs was working in a discount department store in New Jersey called “Two Guys from Harrison”. Anyone remember them?
Two Guys, as we all called it, was the forerunner of Wal-Mart and K-Mart. They had large stores that had a clothing section, hard goods section, and a large grocery section. I fell in love with retail back then. To me, selling products, helping customers, and just being around business made my blood flow and I was hooked.
By the time I had made it back into retail, I was an accomplished IT professional. I knew my craft quite well, and was respected by my peers. I had been in a few industries outside of retail, and felt quite ready to take my years as a store associate, and my newly honed IT skills and turn the IT world on its head.
As it turned out, I was quite successful in Retail IT, but I found it much, much harder than the other industries in which I’d practiced my magic. I really wondered why it was so much harder. My users were less satisfied. My staff turnover rate was much higher. Projects seem to come in late more often, and I never felt like I had enough resources. Why? What was different? The answer – retail was different.
Retail is a fast, sloppy business. The business comes at you at 100 miles an hour. You have very little time to prepare, and no time to celebrate your successes. There is very little planning in retail, what you do plan goes out the door like a general’s battle plan after the first shot is fired. The fog of war is a major league fog, but the fog of retail can definitely throw you off your game.
In manufacturing, we could plan our day. If the general manager said “We have orders to make 100,000 bottles of perfume today. Do we have enough caps, bottles, and sprayers to make them? Do we have enough perfume in stock? How many bottles can we make per line per 8 hours? “ Well, when all of that math is done, you know what you can do that day, and how many days it will take to make a 100,000 bottles.
Not retail – nope. The buyers buy product using some statistical modeling, but mainly using instinct. They distribute them to the stores in the hope that you will buy them. They watch the sales reports to see if you like them, then they buy more. God forbid they should buy too many and have to mark them down! The information comes in at the speed of light. The buyers and their teams use the tools we provide them to analyze, drill down, suggest reorders, and transfers. We help them price their product, tell them when to be out of it, and tell them when to start marking it down to move it out to make room on the floor for next season’s inventory. The speed with which the information comes at them is incredible. They have little time to plan, and even less time to react!
We in IT work out tails off to ensure that the stores, buyers, and warehouse guys have everything they need to be efficient. They need reports, screens and tools to help manage their labor, manage their inventory and manage their processes. We IT don’t create business processes – we generally automate other people’s processes. Hopefully those processes are good because if we automate a bad process, we will help you make mistakes faster than you’ve ever made them before!
Retail IT is hard because retail is hard. We spend all year generating huge sales only to make very slim net margins. Some in retail say it is hardly worth the effort. But, if you have been in retail and have been bitten by the retail bug, there is nothing like it.
Yes, retail IT is hard because retail is hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.