As the President and CEO of a major technology subsidiary focused on delivering security, safety and operational efficiency using a broad technology portfolio we call the Smart Enterprise, I have the opportunity to meet and work with a lot of great companies and brands.
For example, I take great pride in the fact that NEC Corporation of America has such a longstanding, global relationship with 7-Eleven, Inc. The convenience store giant is a beacon of innovation in the retail industry, and through the years we have helped 7-Eleven build out its impressive IT platform.
This week, NEC announced an exciting, exclusive deal with 7-Eleven to provide point-of-sale (POS) technology to 8,600 stores across the United States and Canada. As we communicated in the news release, for 7-Eleven it’s a great new opportunity to connect with tech-savvy consumers at the register with an engaging, custom digital experience using our NEC TWINPOS® G5100 POS platform.
For us, it’s a great opportunity to continue to demonstrate that we do so much more than provide technology in the store. In this case, we are also offering fully integrated product development, service desk and maintenance support for the next five years.
These are the types of customer relationships that excite me the most – integrated development and support. Working with our customer, we are able to leverage real-time feedback in the labs to create a solution that does exactly what our client wants. To help us stay even more in-tune with our customer, we actually have a 7-Eleven store inside our headquarters building in Irving, Texas. We use it and shop there every day. We serve as a testing ground for our customer, just as our customer often pushes us to innovate in their own environment.
The resulting relationship with 7-Eleven is the very the definition of Smart Retail, which allows retailers to gain insights to know their customers better and build a larger share of wallet. Together, we always have our eyes on the customer.
Over time, I am confident NEC will continue to contribute and enhance 7-Eleven’s customer experience and operational efficiency through a broad range of technologies.
The full gamut of NEC’s Retail Solutions are on display this coming week at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show 2017 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.
If you are headed to the NRF or will be in New York City next week (January 15-17), I encourage you to come by and check it out. Now in its 106th year, there is nothing quite like Retail’s Big Show.
As you can read online in our press release, the NEC booth #4121 will not disappoint and will showcase all of the technologies smart retailers can use to know their customers better, including our core POS hardware, software, cloud platform for retail, Infrastructure as a Service and lifecycle management solutions. Likewise, NEC’s leadership in biometrics solutions, specifically facial recognition for use in loyalty program, as well as automated greetings and surveillance, will provide a bit of wow-factor in the booth. Our industry leading analytics solutions for automated shelf detection, heat mapping and video shopper demographics will also be popular items.
Finally, we’ll be joined in booth by our colleagues at NEC Display Solutions, which offers 4K displays, video wall solutions, interactive displays and large format displays for a wide array of commercial and retail applications.
If you are a technologist in the retail industry, I encourage you to check out NEC’s full retail suite by heading over to www.necam.com/smartretail.
You just might be surprised at how we might be able to help you “Know Your Customer.”
Accompanying former Chief Boyd on many of his visits to NECAM was Assistant Police Chief Jeff Spivey. Like Chief Boyd, Chief Spivey has a dedication to his profession and to the people of Irving that is admirable. He is also a strong supporter of the Irving Advocacy Center, awarded a grant from the NEC Foundation last year.