Dan Orteu, chief technology officer at Anya Hindmarch, believes retailers “just have to roll with it” when faced with the obstacles thrown up by a technology overhaul.
Orteu highlighted his point by telling of the difficulties the company had after buying Retail-J software from Torex.
The acquisition of Torex by Micros and the subsequent sale of Micros to Oracle forced the implementation of the software to be put on hold twice before eventually being scrapped.
Anya Hindmarch now works with Adyen, which offers a unification of payments across store, online and in-app.
Orteu believes that it is now corporate change rather than technology that is causing barriers.
“We know culture eats strategy for breakfast so I need to align everything,” says Orteu. “What has really come to the fore is taking my fellow directors on this journey.”
Anya Hindmarch has reached the point where “the heavy lifting is done” and as a result is focused on innovations that can help grow revenue.
This includes trialling apps that allow the retailer to better utilise its store manager’s knowledge about regular customers such as “Lady Olivier’s granddaughter’s birthday is on 4 July and she tends to like products in blue”.