Exploring Retail and Hospitality Industry

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to Retail Checks and Balances , a podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the bustling world of commerce and culinary delights to help you grow your business and win . Join us as we explore the fascinating stories , trends and challenges that shape the retail and hospitality industry , from cozy corner cafes to sprawling shopping malls and everything in between . And now here's your host , kevin Spencer .

Speaker 2 0:31

Welcome to Retail Checks and Balances . I'm your host , kevin Spencer , and this podcast takes you behind the scenes of the bustling world of commerce culinary delights to help you grow your business and win . My guest today is Marcelo Maneuens from Rodplot Solutions . He's a strategic account manager and he is embracing the world of retail . Is that so , marcelo ?

Speaker 3 0:56

Been embracing it for just almost two decades .

Speaker 2 0:59

yes , oh , fantastic , and tell me about what you do .

Speaker 3 1:05

So what I do here at Rodplot is obviously handling accounts , new accounts , principally here in the US , and starting our foot hold in Puerto Rico getting some stuff done here in Florida . So what I bring to the table is almost two decades of experience when it comes to retail products as far as hardware goes your typical scanners , printers , everything that goes along with that and learning some new things with log SMS software .

Speaker 2 1:40

When you say you've been in business for 20 years , break that down for me .

Speaker 3 1:45

So I like to call it the trips around the block . I'm currently on the third circle around the block . My first circle was with Scanners Wars , latin America . I was there for about seven years and I was a hunter at that time hunting group . It was a great experience . I called it my alma mater , my university , because I graduated from there to a tenure at Star my Chronics , which is Japanese manufacturer of point-and-sale solutions . I was there for the better part of 10 years . So I bring all that experience now as a reseller working here at Rodplus and covering all the bases with each and every opportunity .

Speaker 2 2:29

That song is exciting . I mean being from a distributor to a manufacturer . Now to what we call a VAR right . Yes , we've seen so much things from our SPA retail now in terms of different what was ISV and ISV and the VAR and now it's a DSD .

Speaker 3 2:55

Yeah , there's a lot of acronyms in our industry , a lot of buzzwords . I kind of joked about this at our event in Trinidad a couple of months ago of OmniChannel . What's the OmniChannel ? Obviously , omnichannel is what everybody's been selling . They just turned it now the complete solution for the customer , the complete experience for the customer . So , yeah , a lot of buzzwords that we get to learn and acronyms along the way .

Speaker 2 3:20

So you talked about Trinidad , which is where I'm from right , and I mean you went there back in July and that was your first time in Trinidad . How do you compare Trinidad and Tobago to the mainland ?

Speaker 3 3:37

I mean , fortunately for me , the Caribbean is not my first trip to the Caribbean , so I kind of more paralleled my Trinidad experience to what I would see in the Dominican Republic , traveling there my whole life . I think at the end of the day the basics or the basics , it comes down to the people , and for me the people in Trinidad were amazing great hospitality , everybody smiling . So compared to the mainland US , I would say definitely more easygoing , less stressful kind of focus on what matters , not whatever's being thrown on their plate that day . So yeah , great experience all around .

Speaker 2 4:20

OK , and in Trinidad we're not swinging on trees , right , no , no tree swinging , I could attest to that .

Speaker 3 4:27

And now everybody is singing island boys or anything like that as normal as you can get .

Speaker 2 4:34

No , we're hard workers as well , and we replicate what's the technology from the US in the entire Caribbean , and the Caribbean is an animal of deemed professionals in my experience .

Embracing Technology and Building Relationships

Speaker 2 4:49

And one of the things I know you experienced there was that sometimes I make us a joke that we're sharp eaters , so we're sharp . So people think we're robust at that kind , but it's a good delicacy , love it . Yeah , and you had an experience on the Saturday waiting for your flight .

Speaker 3 5:08

Yeah , the almost never ending wait . But it turned out to be outstanding because we got to go to Richard's Shark Bay and I had eaten shark once before believe it or not here in the Keys and couldn't find it again . And once I heard that it was available in Trini I was like , oh , we got to find this place and it was kind of far off . But the taxi driver said no , there's one right here . And yeah , that was lunch and looking forward to eating it again .

Speaker 2 5:37

And that's new , and normally you have to go to the beach to get the real experience . Yeah , they lay out all the condiments and stuff and you can put the spices and it's a great experience . Sticking on Trinidad , I mean , what were you ?

Speaker 3 5:55

there for again . So Rob Plus had a VIP event for all their customers in from all the territories that's covered by Rob Plus , not just Trinidad . You had people from Guyana there , people from Barbados , people from Puerto Rico , along with all of our vendor partners . Datalogic was there , zeeber was there , touchdynamic , of course , was there . We had representation from Locke Software and then some of our dealers , some of the Locke Software dealers that kind of delve into some additional modules for the program . So all around it was a great event . I personally was the emcee there , so that was fun . I never had emcee an event before , but I think I did OK it did great , thank you .

Speaker 3 6:43

And I kind of moonlighted as the star representative , which was fine , I know the stuff was still fresh in my mind , so that was good Be able to share that portion of my past life right off the bat . And it turned out to be a really , really great event . We had the dinner after the event and get together after hours I think all around from an experienced perspective of a VAR inviting their customers , in which I had attended to other events in the past great camaraderie . I definitely took some notes . If I'm going to be emcee next year , be ready . I want everybody that attended because it's going to be much more interactive when everybody to definitely chime in and kind of break the mold of , ok , we're going to sit up , we're going to watch a presentation , we're going to get going to make sure that they learn something during those presentations next year .

Speaker 2 7:39

Yeah , I think one of the good things you did at that event was you interacted with the audience and asked them for their feedback , and that's not something you see a lot and especially if people in the room are competing against you , it's difficult for them to share .

Speaker 2 7:55

But you did break the ice by getting them to share and get some positive feedback in terms of each session . I think that was great . I mean we we never did that before and I think it was a refreshing aspect of it . And , as you say , you know , being a VA , you know we have aligned with a bunch of different manufacturers and software . I mean our core software is is lock software , sms , and we have aligned with , I think Star Micronics have been good for us in the last 12 years in terms of the evolution of of Rodplus as a business . When you , when you think about from the financial industry I mean you was involved in that when you were at Star , where we rolled out over 6 , 700 printers throughout the Caribbean and spin as we embarked on the new self service self checkout checkouts in the Caribbean , I mean Star was the one that we took as that champion printer to fit in that .

Speaker 3 9:12

Yeah , and it was a very easy sell to upgrade Massey , for example , to the version four of the 100 . So looking forward to that continuing trend and , yeah , I mean Star leading the way with a lot of innovative products . You know , another one of the buzzwords that comes to mind this year is AI , right , so that's like everybody's AI and and data logic kind of stuck out to me . When would it be this , did that presentation and the AI of the scanner using the imaging technology and it being able to learn the differences in products . Obviously , you know , at the core of that , I think , is , you know , loss prevention . But really it's going to make self checkout that much better , because I know myself personally , when I'm doing self checkout , I'm not bringing fruits , I'm not bringing vegetables because there's too many buttons to push .

Speaker 3 10:04

If I could just scan whatever vegetable fruit combination and it knows what I'm doing , then I think that's going to really make that experience 100% more smooth .

Speaker 2 10:13

No , the technology is there , the technology is growing , the technology is taking us into the future . I mean , I think that was great representation by the vendors , so I think we're in the right direction . As a while , when you you basically been kind of embracing , you know as a vice . I mean , I see it as an exciting opportunity because you get you get the better experience with the end users rather than sitting up there from a manufacturer perspective and I think vies are the sweet spot of the retail solution sales . I guess you can see for yourself being exposed to those different , what we call it parts of life . Yeah , yeah , yeah , using the word decades .

Speaker 3 11:09

Yeah , absolutely . I mean getting in the trenches , hearing the customer out , getting their pain points and not have that telephone effective . This is what they said , but this is how the message was received goes a long way and to that point I think manufacturers are starting to realize that . So what they're ? They're definitely more active with the var and that end user than they were 10 , 15 years ago . I think I could definitely attest to that . So where before they were kind of had that 10,000 , 20,000 for view , now they're , they're starting to get more grounded and they need to be a part of that conversation .

Speaker 3 11:50

Obviously , distribution plays a huge part still and getting those products in being able to , you know , to do the financing portion and the warehousing portion and having that ability to to chuggle all those brands that they , that they represent . But yeah , as you said , it's very exciting times . The technology right now is set up . We're fortunate because we're not , you know , in the PC world . You know you have every year you have new chips and new this and new that slower pace when it comes to technology . But I feel now we're at a point where there is a bit of an accelerator , right , and it's coming not exclusively from the hardware , but the software is a huge part of it .

Speaker 2 12:34

There's one thing I want to ask before we wrap up Do you think the relationships with those vendors help from you know , when I say a relationship , I mean a touch and feel relationship . You get to meet people at conferences or meet them at business lunch , rather than the Zoom aspect that everybody likes . I mean , do you think that the person on touch helps ?

Speaker 3 12:57

Absolutely , absolutely . You know , zoom became a necessity , zoom became a verb I remember saying in some presentations back in 2020 . We all lived in that world and it's a great tool , you know . It's facilitating this recording right now , so it's definitely important . But yes , meet and greets , visits to customers , getting everybody involved on that personal level has to happen . It just solidifies that relationship and gives that comfort level to that end user . They say , okay , these guys really care , they keep to see me , it's huge and you can't really present a product without touch and feel . That's the way I learned . So if you brought a product over and you wanted me to sell it , I need to keep the tires or understand more than the spec sheet .

Speaker 2 13:51

Right , but , marcelo , it's been an amazing session . I want to thank you for sitting here with me and kicking the shit , as you say . We really like to get shit done and we want to make sure you give the benefits to all the customers , to all the vendors , to all the people that make this connection well done .

Speaker 3 14:20

That's a great time to be in the industry , that's for sure .

Speaker 2 14:23

Thank you very much . Thank you . This has been checks and balances and this is your premiere episode . Bye .

Speaker 1 14:33

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