James Thorpe, Managing Editor, ISJ speaks with Brian Davidson, Business Development Director – Retail and Distribution, Traka.
In the complex and interconnected world of retail – from busy shop floors to back-of-house management and distribution centres – businesses of all sizes are striving to create memorable customer experiences while streamlining operations.
For retailers embracing change, it is often long-term technology partnerships playing a key role in keeping things moving, providing oversight and control. Traka’s solutions deliver visibility and accountability for every critical asset across this sector.
One individual leading these efforts is Brian Davidson, Traka Americas’ Business Development Director for Retail and Distribution.
Davidson – who has been with Traka for over 15 years – has progressed through roles in service, sales and project management during his time with the global brand, providing him with a deep, hands-on understanding of the challenges organisations face when it comes to working in this dynamic space.
Based in Orlando, Florida near Traka’s US headquarters, he utilises his experience to oversee the company’s strategic, nationwide efforts to improve efficiency and streamline operations through key and asset management within retail and distribution.
In this month’s Head to Head Exclusive, I had the pleasure of sitting down with him to learn more about his focuses and how Traka is meeting changing access control and asset management needs as technology becomes more digitalised.
From building solutions to driving business
To call Davidson’s journey with Traka exciting and diverse would be an understatement.
From hands-on work with equipment to leading regional sales growth and exploring distribution opportunities, his experience has exposed him to a wide range of initiatives, sectors and technology applications.
“I started at Traka in July 2010 doing installations and supporting the building of cabinets,” he reflects. “I had my hands on everything but the sales side of the business! Then, in 2015, I moved into a Project Manager role before taking on the Regional Sales Manager role for the Southeast (US).
“I am a big fan of sales competition – it’s always good fun. I’ve always seen the potential with retail [as an industry sector], but it’s a high-risk, high-reward application area.”
Davidson’s strategic focus sharpened when Traka offered him the Business Development Director role, specifically targeting retail and distribution, and introduced the integration with the newly acquired ASSA ABLOY company, InVue. “It explained the need that customers have had for some back-of-house locker solutions. The partnership made the opportunity even more attractive.”
Having the InVue relationship within view, as well as the shift in the market the company was seeing, enabled Traka to bring its vertical vision to life and make Davidson’s new role a reality. “People, industries, customers, corporations, retailers and more reached out to us specifically around device management and being able to provide better control over shared devices,” he explains.
“We have new locker solutions with ultra-high frequency technology that will really help cement a stronger footprint. The hundreds of thousands of retail locations here in the US could potentially be using either a key cabinet or a locker system to help manage shared devices and keys.
“Many want to make the store experience as similar to an online experience as possible. That means they’re going to invest in technology and try to reduce their overheads at the same time.”
Streamlining device use to protect assets and operations
As tech advances, more and more business devices are distributed to associates and employees. However, people are creatures of habit, and they often prefer to use the same device every day whenever possible.
Just think – if you worked in an office, would you want to use a different laptop each day? An employee may not want to share if it means borrowing faulty equipment. But this can become a real problem if they keep their favourite shared device in their locker and go on vacation.
“They might not consider the ancillary impact of taking that device out of rotation from other users in the business, but every time a solution is replaced like this, it creates an added cost to the business,” explains Davidson.
“Having a solution that can provide accountability becomes valuable for those who are serious about creating a streamlined operation.
“One anecdote that springs to mind for me was a grocer that was trying to build the e-commerce side of its business,” he adds. “They wanted to make it as easy as possible for customers so they could effectively arrive, check in online and the team could bring their groceries out to them.
“Somebody, however, realised that there was a lot of money sitting outside the door in the form of the scanners being used – and they started to target this grocer.
“By grabbing these devices when the people managing that area would leave, they wiped out their business. Not only is it a huge investment to replace the technology itself, but all those online sales couldn’t then be fulfilled.
“Not only did they lose $50,000 worth of scanners – how much did they lose on the groceries per customer? We all know what the cost of shopping is these days.”
In line with comments about device sharing among employees – or often the lack thereof – operational impacts and additional costs can also arise from interdepartmental theft.
For example, an in-store team may have more staff to support them than the e-commerce team, while the e-commerce team may have more devices and therefore require more batteries. This can lead to an in-store team taking batteries from the e-commerce team’s devices, rendering them unusable.
“Traka’s intelligent locker systems offer better control over who is accessing devices and when. They prevent unauthorised access to systems for both external and internal staff. It provides a much clearer audit trail so you can see the metrics on how many devices are being used.”
With Traka’s solutions, you can also set permissions against how many devices a member of staff is allowed to access. You can also add extra devices in case something breaks. “You get more efficiency out of devices,” because they’re being used properly and returned efficiently, Davidson clarifies.
“When they’re returned, they’re being placed on charge. That’s the only way to properly return it.”
A holistic, end-to-end view
With Traka’s fault logging features, device issues can be quickly recorded by the user at the point of return.
This removes the guesswork and informal hand-offs, such as leaving faulty equipment on a manager’s desk with a vague explanation and hoping they can identify the problem.
Too often, this results in a device being deemed “fine,” returned to circulation and the underlying issue going unresolved. By capturing faults, Traka breaks this cycle, ensuring problems are visible, traceable and addressed rather than allowing partially functioning equipment to remain in use.
“It lies within our ability to integrate our software into third-party systems,” comments Davidson. “This allows us to streamline data information and the wider digital aspect of device management.
“We’ve got the ability to integrate into mobile device management (MDM) platforms, and we can even share information like battery charge states. We have a feature called First In First Out (FIFO) that’s designed to issue the device that’s been in the system the longest.
“We can look at battery statuses and then issue based off of that or the logging can automatically create a ticket so that the human involvement in creating a ticket is removed.” Davidson highlights that there is also the potential to take this process further.
For example, an employee would authenticate themselves at a locker and then be issued ‘Device 10’. Device 10 then logs in as that individual, removing the need for a separate step.
This creates an experience where devices are automatically associated with users, simplifying access, improving accountability and streamlining the overall device assignment and login process.
A key takeaway is the true cost of ownership when managing assets. As Davidson mentions, understanding real usage and value is critical regardless of the solution being considered.
This ties into the broader point about how retail and supply chain logistics are now fully interconnected. It also brings the word cybersecurity into sharper perspective.
“When it comes to cybersecurity, it’s also all about having a backup plan and being able to provide a solution that’s not always online. With our locker systems, they don’t have to be on the network – they don’t have to be connected to a cloud source to operate.
“They can operate as a standalone system and as an operational backup in the event that a cyber-attack hits them. You can count on the system to continue to operate with or without a network connection.”
Where in-store operations and back-end warehouse or distribution activities were once viewed separately, changing customer behaviours and advancements in technology have brought them closer together.
Traka looks at this through that same lens, recognising how systems are now linked across the supply chain. Taking a holistic, end-to-end view is the most responsible and effective way to approach asset management today.
