Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 72 - From ERP to Cyber Risk: Rethinking Retail Infrastructure with Venditan

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Ep. 72 - From ERP to Cyber Risk: Rethinking Retail Infrastructure with Venditan · The Payments Shed

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Welcome to the Payment Shed Podcast, the weekly podcast that
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dives into the big topics, trends and people shaping the
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world's of payments, fintech and business.
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Leadership of your two Co hosts, myself Grant Evans and Justin
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Hannah. Welcome to the Payment Shed
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podcast. Today we are joined by John
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Coyne, MD of Vendetan and Director of Altrincham Football
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Club. John, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me. Please can you tell us a little
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bit about yourself and Vendetan and your your journey into the
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world of retail ERP and e-commerce?
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Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a strange, it's a strange story.
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I think because or certainly unconventional in that I've, I
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was a footballer, I came from the world of professional sport
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and ended up in, in retail software, which I don't think
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many have done. I don't think it's a it's a
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journey many have made. But yeah, when I finished
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playing professionally, I joined Ben de Tan.
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I was working with Chris, our founder back in 2003 and we
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started life as a, yeah, SAS based software house.
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We built an e-mail marketing tool back in 2003 when I think
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maybe Constant Contact and dot Mailer were the only two, you
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know, noted providers at the time.
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And we also built CRM systems, we built a pension management
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system. I think it was any kind of
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software that we could, we could really produce we were
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interested in. And then around 2005, we built
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the first version of what we now call benders and commerce for a
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retail pureplay, e-commerce, retail merchant.
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And that's evolved over the last 20. 20 odd years to to where it
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is today and obviously ERP technology or integration's a
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big part of what you guys do. Can you just tell us a little
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bit about what an ERP system is and why it's so critical to a
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retailer? Yeah.
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I think the traditional ERPI suppose is slightly different to
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what I would class as a as a retail ERP in that retail now is
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essentially the ability to be completely Omni channel whilst
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ensuring you've got full control and ownership of your data.
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Whereas the traditional ERP might have additional modules
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like finance and HR. Retail tends to focus more on
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the Omni channel side of things. And if you take somebody, you
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know, I think Shopify, most people will will be aware of.
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We see that as very much an e-commerce platform that links
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in with with the RPS, whereas ARP tends to to go a bit deeper
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into, you know, warehouse supply chain rather than just pureplay
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E com and and in store. What are the mistakes do you
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think that some businesses make when kind of trying to modernize
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or or replace the ERP systems so?
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I mean, I think most, most resalers to start with to
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onboard somebody to or or migrate somebody away from one
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platform to another is a huge undertaking.
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So it doesn't happen that often. I think if it happens in quick
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succession that the previous migration has been a disaster
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because it's, you're essentially asking people to unpick every
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piece of software that runs their entire retail business and
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replace it with something else. And I think the, the easy thing
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to do is to, to see innovation first before architecture.
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And I think for me, you've got to get some fundamentals in
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place if you're going to, if you're going to migrate to a new
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ERP, think about data discipline, think about the
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architecture, think about less is more in terms of, of, of
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integrations and potentially third parties that you might
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work with rather than thinking shiny new toys, lots of, lots of
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new functionality, lots of, you know, of new partners.
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I think that's the biggest risk for me.
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It's it's, it's making a decision based not on emotion,
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not on the shiny new toy, but based on the right fundamentals.
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One of my friend's businesses, he, he re platformed his ERP
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system and it got delayed by the new provider about five times.
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It seemed to just become this thing that went from a three
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month project to nearly a 1 1/2 year project and he was pulling
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his hair out by the end of it. I mean, is that a common thing
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on a retail ERP platform migration?
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I've seen it and I've seen it from both sides, from both the,
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you know, the, the, the, the tech provider and the retailer.
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And mostly, I think if you control third parties, which can
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include the, the, the retail client and you set the right
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expectations, you can stick within a, a decent time frame in
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terms of that migration. But so many factors as a, as a,
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as a platform ourselves, there's so many factors outside of our
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control. And again, mostly third parties,
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but just I think getting your specifications right, managing
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expectations throughout, delivering a, you know, a crap
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sandwich now and again, doesn't, doesn't go amiss because, you
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know, it's hard sometimes to say to a client, look, this is on
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you, this is your responsibility.
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But you know, if they're going to cause a delay to the critical
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path, then you need to, you need to make sure you tell them
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because you've got other scheduling priorities as well.
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So it's, you know, I can see why things often can take longer
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than they should, But I think if it's, if there's good
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discipline, good specifications, good workshops, good
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expectations setting, then it can be done on time.
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With the, I'm going to say introductions, I still don't
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know how how real Omni channel is across the whole of the
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payments industry, but what impact does that had on the ERP
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systems having to kind of grow and mature very quickly?
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From a payments perspective, yeah, yeah.
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I mean, I, I think if you think back to, you know, sort of 20
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years ago when ERP for resale would have been just in store
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card holder present, plus lots of cash transactions.
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We've now moved significantly away from that with the vast
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majority of payments being online card holder not present.
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And I think for, for us, I think you see having a deep
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integration with a payments provider is, is, is super key
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because if we don't, then you know, that leads to
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reconciliation issues, you know, all the success payment fail and
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vice versa. And I think you've got to, and
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again, it's, it's why I think less is more sometimes when you
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do have a partner, rather than having 789 payment partners,
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focus on a couple, have contingency, but make sure that
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you've got the right partner so that you know, you, you, you've
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got the trust of the customer. It's emotive.
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You know, for each client that we've got anything that's
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payment related, they, they get emotional over because it's
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money, It's at the end of the day, it's, it's how they, it's
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their bread and butter. It's how they make a living.
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You've got the trust of the end user, the customer in AD 2C
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perspective. So I think we've, we've got to,
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you know, as a, as a responsible tech provider, we've got to find
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the right partners, make sure that we've got enough trust in
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place to deliver what's expected now and.
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What have you intended to look for with the payments partners
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that you guys have worked with over the years?
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Well, I think we've changed. I think if we go back sort of 15
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to 10 years ago, we maybe looked for a bit of innovation.
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Mobile payments were quite key, good mobile checkout journey,
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our ability to, to maybe manipulate how the checkout
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looks and the payment pages look.
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And I think we, if we think about it now, we're, we're less
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concerned around the manipulation of the checkout.
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As long as it follows best practice, I think we're fairly
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comfortable. But I think not, you know, not
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not thinking too much around the design and the aesthetic and
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that flow, you know, is, is something we we must avoid.
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But also having too much flexibility and letting people
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loose with with checkouts is is also a risk, I would say and.
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You've had things like BNPL to factory and obviously being in
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the retail space, so choosing the right partners.
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But yeah, finance alternative payment methods probably more
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commonplace in retail than other sectors as well traditionally.
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Yeah. And I think there's, there's
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obviously a lot of real estate and I think using data is quite
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key there. It's understanding what the the
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market share of each payment type needs and, and for
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different products and different Aovs.
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So for instance, you know, if we're selling, we've got a
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client that's got a high AOV, we'll buy now, pay later might
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be more prominent alongside open banking, alongside debit, credit
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card and finance. Whereas, you know, those smaller
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transactions, you might feel like, OK, debit, credit card,
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PayPal. But I think, yeah, that that
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real estate, everyone's competing for every different
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payment provider tells us it's the most important.
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They're the most important and they should be higher.
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But I think it's it's driven mostly by what the client sells,
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the retail sector, what the AOV is.
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And how's that retail sector changed immensely during your
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time with vendor town as e-commerce has scaled to the
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heights that it is now from like a technology point of view, like
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how have they had to retailers had to keep up as probably, you
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know, even because you guys are really interesting because you
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have that a lot of customers that do Omni channel, they have
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the bricks more on the e-commerce store.
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But obviously they may have pivoted over time from being
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higher sales in store to higher E com sales, right?
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And how they've had to change their own businesses with a
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partner like you guys to accommodate that.
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Yeah. And I think even sort of 5-6
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years ago when, when COVID hit, you know, retail, every retail
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that we worked with had to pivot greatly, mostly within, you
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know, supply chain because stock was at a premium.
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Everybody wanted to carry a lot of stock.
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And then 18 months later, they find that they sat on too much
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stock. So even little, I'll say little,
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you know, COVID was huge. But things like that that you
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can't forecast for necessarily make a massive difference to the
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retail clients or the retail merchants.
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You know, across the world, we've seen a lot, you know,
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obviously you think just the acceleration of AI into mostly
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front end. I have my own opinions on where
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AI sits for retail, but lots of front end development around AI
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tools and product recommendations and things like
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that. And I think retailers see stuff
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and think, you know, we've got to have that.
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It's not necessarily always the case in my mind.
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I think you've got to choose your partners carefully, but
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there's just so much more options now.
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You know, from the expectation 20 years ago of, you know, order
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now, get it within a week, it's probably fine.
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You know, people want same day if not next day right now.
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So the expectation generationally has changed.
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So retails just have to pivot fairly rapidly.
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Quite. Often when I buy something on
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Amazon and order it at 10 AM and it's at my house at like 4:00 PM
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sometimes. I think that that that Amazon
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mindset has probably set the president for other retailers as
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well, right? Because people want to be able
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to get it as quick as they can. But also when we talk about the
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interest free credit or interest bearing products, people also
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think once they consume, once they purchase something, they
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can just send it back, which is a huge problem for retailers,
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right? Which is why ERP systems are
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even more important to them. Hugely.
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And I think we, we're often mapping refunds and any trends
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and patterns that we can find because we know it's a, it's a
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problem in the same way that, you know, within payments, you,
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you, you consistently monitoring decline rates, every sort of
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element of the, of the journey, whether it's refunds, whether
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it's reporting, whether it's payments, you kind of got to map
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everything against what's industry standard, what's good
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look like. And I think for, for us, I think
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data's key, you know, it's, it's, but it's also what you do
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with that data once you've got it because, you know, we can, we
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can download lots of reports. But I think trying to understand
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it, getting some patterns, trial and error.
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I think it's quite key for for not just us as a tech provider,
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but for retailers as well. We, we spoke to someone earlier
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this week and we spoke data's great insights are great, but
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what do you do with the data and the insights is what actually
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will will differentiate you from somebody else.
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Yeah. And I think segmentation and
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Amazon's a great example, aren't they, where, you know, if you
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buy a lawn mow from Amazon and then they're showing your lawn
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mowers, I mean, you're buying a lawn mow what, every 10 years or
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something like that. So if you bought 1-2 weeks ago,
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you don't need, you don't need another one, do you?
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You know, whereas lots of things that you buy of Amazon, you buy
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regularly. And I think, you know, having
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that data segment, segmenting it correctly is quite key because I
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think it's frequency, it's behaviour, it's the important
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stuff and then used it right. But I think, you know, we see it
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across different sectors. I don't, I, I sometimes I'll get
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an e-mail marketing campaign from somebody and kind of see
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there's no effort gone into it as I get others.
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And I think, you know, they've got somebody who's working the
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data and it's really obvious. Could you say something about
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Amazon? They've not changed their UX in
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years. Like you look at that site, it's
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the same thing from 10 years ago, all the back end find my
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order. But because you just buy the
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products and it arrives so quickly, you almost don't think,
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oh, maybe this needs a bit of a refresh now.
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Like I don't I generally don't remember when they changed it.
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I. Rarely have problems with the
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products I get from Amazon either because most of the time
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I know exactly what I want and Amazon's given to me.
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The only issues I have with Amazon is delivery, which I know
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is not necessarily Amazon's fault.
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You mean just chucking it over your fence or leaving it on the
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on the doorstep or? Next door's fence.
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Yeah, no, I get that. When you're in Manchester,
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clearly a lot of rain. So when that goes over the gate,
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that product, that order, you know you're getting home and
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it's it's absolutely dressed. You're not things you have to
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send back. And if you're buying a book,
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yeah, and it's just sat in the rain for six hours, it's of
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little use. Yeah, we'll get on to DHL and
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those guys separate. That's the whole podcast in
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itself. Where do you think then that
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e-commerce platforms, ERP and payments clash the most at this
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moment in time? Yes, I think I've said it
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before. I think it's that, you know,
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order succeeds, payment fails and vice versa.
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I can see that because, and also timing, I think about
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authorisations within payments, the settlement within payments,
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timing is always different. We work with many retailers.
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They all have a, a different process for finance and how they
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reconcile. And I, I see that being the
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biggest cause of maybe support tickets or support issues at our
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end where we see, you know, a reconciliation challenge.
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And I think it just comes down to, to timings because the way
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the, the, the payment suppliers work versus how the, you know,
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the finance department within a retail merchant works completely
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different. Can't always map it perfectly.
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It's nobody's fault necessarily, but I see that as a as a
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challenge that that potentially needs to be thought about the
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root cause of it thinking about a bit a bit more clearly.
15:13
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That's ISX dot Financial and a big thank you to the team at ISX
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for supporting the show. Would you say that payments
15:56
companies have? Probably.
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I personally have this opinion that payments companies have
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slightly neglected the importance of ERP in retail like
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that they've not gone direct integration into ERP.
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Obviously spend a ton bridges that gap, but you'd have thought
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more payments companies would have gone direct to ERP than
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have done. I think every, every time we
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speak to, you know, somebody reaches out to us to talk about
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payments, the first thing they say is lights integration,
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really lights integration. And for me that's I'm in the
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mile because we don't want a light integration.
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We want that fully embedded solution within our platform
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because that allows the the retailer to just control things
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through through the platform, through, you know, that, that
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Omni channel piece where you've got to know all payment sources,
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all data sources. One single version of the truth
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is OK without, you know, with a light integration for payments
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where you've then got to maybe leave the the platform to go
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into a payments portal and understand what's gone on.
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I'm not saying we'd never do that.
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We often, you know, if there's, if there's something we need to
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look at the logs for something we'll will come out of the, you
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know, the, the platform if we're looking at support.
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But for me, I think you've got a really deep embedded integration
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with a payment supplier, which we'll always start with some
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teething issues, but become really resilient over time.
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And I think that's the only way forward.
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And I think that's, that's where payment suppliers really need to
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focus if they want those partnerships and they want to
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leverage the, the, the platforms for their client base.
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Essentially, I think you know, it's it's that deep embedded
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integration which makes a lot more sense to me.
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Do you think some retailers underestimate kind of how
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interconnected their check out stock fulfilment world actually
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could be in it they want light touch and they don't want much
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risk, but they want as much reward as possible?
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I think they're getting more savvy, you know, certainly the
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the retailers that we work with, I mean at at the lower end of
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the E com landscape, you know, the, the kind of mom and pop
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retailers, I don't think they understand it anywhere near
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enough. And I think they're they're used
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to having, you know, a stripe or if they're using Shopify or a, a
18:10
big commerce or somebody like that, they're quite used to just
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payments work. Don't need to worry too much
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about it. They'll be the odd chargeback.
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However it's, you know, it's, it's sort of out of our comfort
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zone. Whereas the most savvy, bigger,
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slightly bigger merchants, certainly enterprise level
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merchants, I think that they understand it a lot more now.
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So in your opinion then what does a, you know well
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architectured retail stock look like as we as we head into the
18:39
the second quarter of 2026? Single source of truth, it's the
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big thing for me. I think understanding your data
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have it having that single source of, you know, stock
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inventory, customer payments, all within the the same
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architecture, I think is super, super important.
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Because you know, otherwise if you, I think think back sort of
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again, 1520 years where you're having to pull data in from
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multiple sources and running some kind of MI that, that
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doesn't make an awful lot of sense unless you've got somebody
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manually working on that data. We've moved on from that.
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And I think if you've if you've got that single source of truth
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and you've got that discipline behind it, you've got half a
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chance of growing. There's lots of data there then
19:25
equal lots of risk. So from a retail perspective,
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like how exposed are they in reality to all this data that's
19:32
out there, especially large retailers that process in huge
19:35
volumes? I think it depends on the
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ecosystem and how many partners and third parties are involved.
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I think most retailers unfortunately are still
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blissfully unaware of the risk around data and and again,
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that's it's an awareness challenge.
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Yeah, I mean that that they're unaware until there's a problem.
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So yeah, I mean. What what are the most common
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sort of checkout or e-commerce vulnerabilities that that you
20:05
guys kind of warn your customers about?
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I think, again, third parties are always a risk because, you
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know, there's another data point that's been exposed potentially.
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I often think if you've, and again, I won't, I kind of won't
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bad mouth any, any econ platforms, but there are plenty
20:28
out there that have app stores. And if there's ever a data
20:32
breach, it's the app stores that get blamed.
20:34
It's never the platform, but that ecosystem lends itself to
20:39
to that, you know, and again, they've all got disclaimers as
20:42
to why. It's not their fault, but.
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I'll name them. You don't need to join.
20:47
It's all right. We Commerce in a previous role
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we had and you know, I'm not blaming we commerce, but I think
20:54
some of the developers that we're building on it maybe
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created some vulnerabilities. And then, you know, payments is
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always, you know, payment companies always the first port
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of call when chargeback store start rolling in.
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But actually that charge back may well have originated earlier
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on in the journey for an integration that had a
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vulnerability in it. So we get called the bad cop,
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but actually there can be multiple individuals involved in
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a checkout and a breach potentially happening, right?
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And the more there are, the bigger the risk I would say.
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And I think this is where it comes back to that smaller
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ecosystem. And that's where ERP can make a
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difference. So if you suppose, if you're on
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the, the precipice of, of growth as a retailer from, you know,
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potentially we've got enough tech today, but as we grow, we
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can't, you know, we're, we're putting sticky plasters over
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some of the risks. I think that's where ARP can
21:47
really help. And, and having that, that
21:50
approach where it's, you know, less of an ecosystem.
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So it's, it's the real key fundamentals.
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It's having good search, it's having good payments, good
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shipping options, but having, you know, whereas I think
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there's so many retailers where it's so busy across the site, so
22:09
many third parties interjecting code, it's opening yourself up
22:14
for risk. And is, is that cybersecurity
22:17
question now being held at a board level as opposed to just
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throw it to the IT team? I'd say absolutely no, no.
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I think it's the biggest concern I suppose for for retailers in
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that most people that we speak to, we're trying to educate as
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many people as we can around the risk and not just from a
22:38
compliance perspective, but from a brand protection perspective
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as well. But the amount of times I hear
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just, yeah, we'll speak to IT about that or we'll speak to the
22:48
payment provider or the hosting, you know, it's and I think it's
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definitely the wrong thing to think about because it's a board
22:56
level issue. If I mean MNSA, great example,
23:01
huge issues last year, well for weeks.
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Didn't. It who had to come out in the
23:05
press and speak to the IT was the CEO, it wasn't IT in the
23:10
press, it wasn't, you know, the head of infrastructure, it
23:13
wasn't some of their third party partners, it was the CEO.
23:17
So I think if that doesn't explain to people that it's a
23:21
board level issue, then nothing will.
23:24
That's the salary link to that maybe as well.
23:26
Yeah, everyone's a bit. It's just kind of how's the idea
23:28
to check out audit kind of product come come to life for
23:31
you guys. Tell us a little bit more about
23:33
that. Yeah.
23:33
So it was April last year, we launched the a new tool which
23:39
was focused on risk prevention at the checkout.
23:42
It came off the back of and not again.
23:45
There's not a lot of awareness I don't think right now around
23:48
some new PCI regulation that came into effect last year,
23:52
which puts the onus on the merchant having audited what's,
23:57
you know, any changes at the checkout and having evidence of
24:01
that. So, you know, they've got to
24:03
keep a, you know, a report that they are monitoring for any
24:06
changes. Is that still an SAQA?
24:08
Yeah, it is. But it was a four point 0.1 new
24:13
regulation that came out and again with everything.
24:16
And I think this is one of the frustrations around someone
24:19
like, well, card industry specifically here that the
24:22
awareness piece is often missing.
24:25
That regulation comes potentially from further down
24:29
the supply chain. So from a payment provider or
24:31
from the banks when there's an issue, whereas it's not
24:34
widespread coverage, but it is an issue and it's it's no longer
24:38
acceptable for a merchant who's accepted payments to say, well,
24:43
it's the ERP, it's it's vendor turn or it's yeah, it's the
24:46
payment provider. It's become a tick box exercise
24:49
that hasn't it? I mean, I've said previously
24:51
like PCI is probably one of the worst rolled out products,
24:57
mandatory products ever in payments and it's fundamentally
25:02
critical to protecting your business.
25:04
But the education that sits around is still not good enough.
25:07
You know, we're talking about you guys having to go and
25:10
educate your customers, not the payments companies that overarch
25:13
that. That to me sounds sounds crazy
25:16
in many ways. And I don't know if it's some of
25:18
the interesting with some of our clients where they did
25:21
approaches Q1 last year saying what do we need to do to do
25:24
this. And we looked at a couple of
25:27
third parties that potentially might solve this problem for
25:30
them. But then thought, well,
25:32
actually, there's a, there's a market opportunity for us with
25:35
creating a tool that would, that would constantly and
25:38
continuously monitor for, for any changes at the checkout.
25:42
And there are many, you know, we think about, you know, Google
25:45
tag manager, think about all the analytics changes that, that
25:48
retailers make on a daily, if not weekly basis.
25:52
So there are lots of safe changes, lots of changes that
25:56
potentially might look like the need to be investigated, but
26:00
they're false positive. And, you know, we wanted to make
26:03
sure that we captured them and, and we, we had some human review
26:07
of it, you know, in terms of the rules that we, we create.
26:11
But then also we wanted to make sure that if somebody did gain
26:15
access to a payment page maliciously, that we were aware
26:19
of it instantly. And that was the key thing.
26:21
That was the the bit that changed the product from being
26:23
maybe more compliance. And we're ticking a box here for
26:26
PCI to actually this is, this is much greater, this is risk
26:30
prevention. So it's proactively monitoring
26:33
all the. Proactively monitors continuous.
26:35
We've got weekly summaries. We don't try and in and date
26:39
users or subscribers with concert reports because you know
26:43
the vast majority there's no issues detected, but it's
26:46
continuously monitoring for anything can.
26:48
You run it in the background as well, so can you run it in the
26:51
background? Yeah, absolutely no code, no
26:53
code required for for retailers. So we can run it against any
26:56
platform no matter who they're using.
26:59
They don't need to be a vendor to customer.
27:00
But essentially speaking, we're, we're, we're, we're constantly
27:04
monitoring. And if something does happen,
27:07
it's, it's important that somebody's aware of it
27:10
instantly. And there's a escalation e-mail
27:13
alert that goes out to, to any users of the, of the tool.
27:17
And we can then help with any remedial actually, should they
27:21
need it. Often they've got their own,
27:24
their own suppliers who can help with that.
27:25
But the best analogy I've got for it is if you go on holiday
27:31
and you've got your upstairs bathroom window, which is tiny,
27:34
slightly open, well, it's unlikely someone's going to
27:38
break in, but there is a chance. And I think most issues that
27:43
we're detecting are similar to that where there's, you know,
27:46
it's, it's you're probably safe, but do something about.
27:50
It it cost a complacency. It's not critical, but you know,
27:54
I wouldn't go for two weeks with with leaving it open.
27:56
On those fishing rod car thieves that nick the car keys, they
27:59
only need a little a little crack in the window.
28:01
Argue right. I always leave.
28:02
I want to see window open. I just do.
28:04
Or leave it on latch. OK, not everyone's just going
28:08
from my house, but it's just, I just forget about it and I was
28:11
going it's fine. No one can get up there.
28:13
The only way we can get there is with a ladder, for example,
28:15
right. But there is that risk.
28:17
We were just like. She's got a ladder.
28:18
She makes sure I go back. I said no one's going to take a
28:20
ladder around with them to go and rob houses, but my wife
28:24
makes sure I look at every single time.
28:26
Do you think larger retailers are, I mean M&S is probably we
28:32
just talked about that. So it was probably a stupid
28:33
question, but do you think they are more like cyber resilient or
28:36
more cyber focused than smaller retailers or do you think it's
28:40
just everyone's a little bit blase about it still?
28:43
Yeah, I don't think there's any patterns.
28:45
I would say M&S are very resilient and and robust with
28:49
their their protections now. Now, yeah.
28:52
I think they've brand new IT team.
28:54
They they have a good response to it.
28:55
I think that's that's part of the of the journey.
28:58
I think it's it's trying to prevent, but then if there is a
29:01
breach, it's having the right response and the right
29:04
escalation and it's how you deal with it can often be the
29:07
difference between your brand reputation and I think M&S Co-op
29:11
and Harrods to some extent all dealt with it relatively well.
29:14
Harrods were fantastic how they dealt with it then it in the
29:18
book very quickly and I think avoided any any sort of
29:23
disaster. But I think all three of those
29:26
high profile ones dealt with it pretty well.
29:28
And it's, it's that, it's that post breach response that's
29:31
important. And that's the bit I think I
29:33
would say 90% of the guests of retailers in the UK don't have a
29:37
adequate response plan. They'll have some and it might
29:41
be as simple as phone your line manager, but I would say 90%
29:45
don't have a an adequate response plan.
29:47
Do they ever announce the financial impact of that of any
29:50
of those? I mean, imagine it'd be.
29:52
M&S. Because the website, so their E
29:53
com store was down for what like 2 months or something like that,
29:57
yeah. But I think what they've done so
29:59
well is M&S, people trust M&S as a brand, right?
30:04
So even if I had problems during that 456 weeks, whatever it was,
30:08
I'd still go back and purchase from them.
30:10
So they've done such a good job pre issues that they had that
30:15
their customers I think are still being.
30:16
I don't think many customers were.
30:18
I'm never going to shop ever again.
30:20
And I think, I think a lot of consumers can maybe see that
30:24
they were targeted and have some sympathy for them.
30:28
Whereas unfortunately for a smaller retailer, there is less
30:32
sympathy. You know, I think if, if, if I
30:34
bought from small independent retailer and there was a breach
30:37
and I was aware of it because I've got an e-mail from them to
30:39
say, hey, sorry, your account's been breached.
30:43
You're nervous about going back because you don't with M&S, you,
30:46
you, you're pretty sure that the, the response is going to be
30:49
good. They're going to, they're really
30:51
taking it serious now, Whereas a smaller independent might not
30:55
have the resources to know how the funds to to make sure that
30:58
nothing happens again. So it's it's a definite risk,
31:02
it's an existential threat to medium sized retailers.
31:06
Percy Pigs brand loyalty as well.
31:08
Yeah. And kind of looking forward,
31:11
kind of what do you see as the biggest retail tech risks or
31:14
opportunities over the next few years?
31:19
I think the, the, the biggest risk will be just around, you
31:23
know, exposure to, to, to cyber threats.
31:26
Because of AI getting stronger and smarter.
31:28
I think just because the whole ecosystems growing, there's lots
31:31
of again, you know, just the amount of apps and 3rd party
31:35
plugins that retailers use for the right reasons, you know, for
31:38
insight, for segmentation, for recommendations, there's just
31:42
lots of them and I think that will remain a risk.
31:47
And if you know, and again, if you not suggesting for, for one
31:52
minute that you need to stop using third party plug
31:54
insurance, but I think you need to be aware of the risks
31:56
associated with it when you, when you do and you know,
31:59
understanding what processes the, the third parties have in
32:03
place. A lot of these are, you know,
32:04
SAS providers, SAS software that, you know, there's, there's
32:07
no, very unlikely to be a human at the other end of you know, of
32:12
any customer service. It's mostly going to be chat
32:14
bots, but it's understanding, it's, it's taking it serious
32:17
when you, when you integrate a third party or you implement a
32:19
tool, it's really understanding what is the risk here.
32:24
And there's lots of tools that you can use to help you find out
32:26
what they are. But I think that's the that's
32:29
not going away any time soon. There's so many emerging
32:32
threats, new vulnerabilities that are that are happening.
32:36
And it's not, you know, it's not slowing down.
32:37
Every time you kind of close and bolt one door, there's another
32:41
threat coming. Yeah.
32:43
And you said earlier you've got some pretty strong opinions on
32:46
on AI and and e-commerce and how those things align.
32:49
So, so please do share those opinions with.
32:52
Us yeah, I mean it's I don't necessarily have any axe to
32:57
grind with AII think lots of people have gone full throttle
33:01
front end AI. How can it how can it work on
33:06
you know, the display level? And I think for a retailer, the
33:09
the clever use of AI will be within the back office for me.
33:14
And that's whether that's forecasting, you know, stock
33:16
predictions sell through predictions for Replan so that
33:22
you're not caught short or caught with too much stock in
33:24
certain periods of the year or whether that's you know,
33:28
efficiencies within order fulfillment or within the
33:32
warehouse in terms of picking, packing, dispatch.
33:35
I think that's where AI can make a real difference for retails
33:37
around the efficiency. And I think that's our focus
33:41
certainly as a, as a tech business is to, to drive, use AI
33:44
to drive efficiencies within back office operations rather
33:48
than thinking too much around, you know, the display layer.
33:52
Do you asked about it as well by customers, prospective
33:55
customers? Like how much of that you know
33:57
is on your road map or your tech stack?
33:59
Absolutely, yeah. I think it's one of the first
34:01
questions now, if you, if you're doing a, you know, a
34:04
requirements call with, with the retailers maybe looking to, to
34:07
re platform, you know, it's how much AI is within the platform.
34:11
What's your reliance on AI? Do you have developers or is it
34:14
just all built with AI? Well, we've got, you know,
34:17
something like 18,000,000 lines of code within our ARP and I can
34:20
tell you it's it's it's developers rather than.
34:23
AI think they're asking more because they're concerned you've
34:26
got too much AI driving the platform, not what can you do
34:29
with it to help us. Could be a bit of both.
34:31
I think, you know, some want to know that you've invested in AI
34:35
and, and we have as a business, but also some want to know is
34:39
there a reliance on AI and you know, because they're they may
34:43
be fairly savvy with it themselves.
34:44
So I think you get both. And if you're advising kind of a
34:49
mid market retailer today, what to do with our investment, where
34:53
would you suggest they should prioritize that investment?
34:55
Would it kind of be infrastructure?
34:57
Would it be payments optimization?
34:59
Would it kind of be in in cyber security resilience?
35:02
Yeah, I think, I think all of them have a, you know, a place
35:06
within, within any advice we'd give to to a mid sized retailer.
35:11
But I suppose data discipline is something that is coming up more
35:15
and more. If you think about, you know,
35:17
and again, any retailer that's been trading online for a number
35:21
of years or a number of decades now, data will have been dealt
35:26
with and handled by various third parties, suppliers, staff.
35:33
And having that, you know, again, you think back to,
35:37
especially if you've re platformed, how you've moved
35:39
data from one system to another, you tend to, you know, there's
35:43
no consistency. It's not formulaic.
35:45
It's, it's usually when we're on board and clients to, to
35:49
Benderton data is always a bit of a slot really, because you've
35:54
got years worth of, of inconsistency and trying to get
35:59
it in the right format for growth.
36:02
It is a big job, but then it's no good as doing all that heavy
36:06
lifting, getting the data into a great place so that it's
36:09
positioned well for 3rd party marketplaces, for agents, AI
36:14
agents and, and then giving it to a client and then suddenly
36:19
they sabotage it through, you know, port handling of data,
36:24
inconsistent formats, not enough detail.
36:28
So I think that's the biggest advice I would give them.
36:30
It's get the data right. You get yourself in a place
36:33
where you you kind of position well to grow.
36:35
Make sure that everyone who handles data or brings data into
36:38
systems follows a process, follows a formula, and.
36:42
You've got internal internationalisation on top of
36:44
that as well, like a lot of UK brands are performing really
36:48
well in in other markets these days and you've probably had
36:51
brands that have grown with you in scale with you and moved
36:53
outside the UK. How have you kind of seen them
36:56
have to pivot, obviously with Brexit and tax implications that
36:59
you get stuff. What was something from Lacoste
37:01
a few weeks ago sat in border control if I didn't realise it
37:04
was coming from France or somewhere, and you know, sat
37:07
there for like 2 1/2 weeks waiting to go through customs.
37:09
Like that's got to be something that's been challenging.
37:12
Yeah, I think Brexit punished retailers to some extent, didn't
37:16
they? If they had really strong
37:17
international growth presence, it really, you know, sort of put
37:23
a dagger right through that, which is a shame because we had
37:27
lots of clients growing nicely across Europe and and further
37:30
afield and it all it's done. It's just squeezed margin made
37:34
it harder to to trade overseas. They're still doing it and you
37:38
know, it's maybe some are still doing as well as they were doing
37:41
pre Brexit. Plenty arm and I see.
37:44
That growth, hasn't it? Yeah, massively.
37:46
I think it's, it's a real shame that, you know, you've got all
37:51
these growth channels, lots of opportunity and then suddenly,
37:54
you know, through no fault of your own, it's, it's really
37:57
stunted. Yeah, not good at all.
38:00
And I, I also wanted to ask before we talk about football
38:04
because we're of course going to talk about football.
38:06
But you have worked with lots of different payment companies over
38:09
the years. We've obviously known each other
38:10
for, for a long time. And what, what are the things
38:13
that have led to you changing from one payment provider to the
38:17
other? Because I think that's
38:17
interesting for the payments community for a retail, you
38:19
know, you probably get sold to by payments companies all the
38:21
time as a retail SAS platform, right?
38:24
Yeah. I mean, when we, when the first
38:26
integration we ever did was with data cache, that's, I suppose
38:29
that's showing our age. And the one thing I'll say about
38:34
them that the customer service was pretty shoddy, but the
38:38
integration was super tight, super resilient and it just
38:41
worked. And I always think of it like a
38:43
conveyor belt in a factory, as long as it's moving and it's
38:46
working and we got OK reporting, I think we're always quite
38:50
comfortable. And once they're required by
38:54
MasterCard, I think MasterCard took their eye off the ball
38:57
wasn't really their place to be. It wasn't their space from what
39:00
we could tell. And and that then, you know,
39:02
they, they kind of discontinued that, that service.
39:06
We got noticed that that was being discontinued.
39:08
And I think it shows you how far maybe we on the client base that
39:12
we work with have come in that we felt it was fine to just have
39:15
one payment integration at that point.
39:18
There was no thought around contingency and what happens if
39:20
it just worked. And when it didn't, well, OK,
39:23
we'll try and fix it. And I think then, you know, sort
39:28
of 15 years ago, we started to think about who else might be in
39:31
the market. We, we integrated with the
39:34
global payments and they're all real X platform, which you might
39:37
remember and we've worked with them, with them since.
39:43
And we, what we've purposely done is a real deep integration
39:46
into that gateway. I think the only reason we've
39:49
since pivoted slightly and and we're now working with one other
39:53
gateway is because I think, again, customer service is a
39:58
challenge and having that level of support and then innovation
40:03
and again, innovation was a big part maybe 6-7 years ago.
40:07
For, for payments for me and, and how, what benefit our
40:10
clients would get, whether it was in fraud protection or
40:13
whether it was within mobile payments and good conversion
40:16
rate. But I think again, that's now
40:19
become sort of slightly less important.
40:22
And for me, it's, it's getting that architecture right.
40:24
It's, it's making sure that it's deeply embedded within the
40:27
platform. And then there's the right level
40:29
of customer service, technical customer service from the
40:32
payment provider that can give us the Peace of Mind to sell it
40:36
into our clients because again, it's an emotional part of the E
40:40
com life cycle payments because again, you know, it's it's money
40:45
for the retailer. So for us to feel comfortable, I
40:49
think we've got to make sure that there's enough trust from
40:52
the, you know, there is a challenge.
40:54
Can we get it fixed quickly? So we've, we've, yeah, we do get
40:58
lots of payment providers reaching out, but we've chose
41:03
specifically only to integrate deeply with, with a couple.
41:06
And shifting gears slightly, you're also director of Altering
41:10
and Football Club. How did you end up from from
41:15
from being involved in football club as well as being involved
41:17
in kind of a retail technology provider?
41:19
Yeah, I mean, it's, I think partly because of my background
41:23
in sport, but also I, I started to go watch Alteringham.
41:27
It's where I live. I started to go watching them
41:29
maybe 7-8 years ago and I bumped into, I got introduced to the
41:34
the then chairman who knew a little bit about my background,
41:39
clearly wanted someone he thought would would sponsor the
41:43
club and I did that. I did a few match sponsorships,
41:47
you know, player sponsorship just to help them out whilst
41:49
watching them. And the more involved I got,
41:54
inevitably the questions came to to will you join the board?
41:58
And that was 2019, pre COVID and pre, you know, football behind
42:03
closed doors. But that was the journey really.
42:07
And, and I think they wanted somebody who understood
42:09
football, that the club didn't have an Academy at the time and
42:12
wanted to launch an Academy which I was going to help them
42:15
with, but then just wanted good, good people, local people who
42:19
could help maybe try and grow the club.
42:23
Their lessons from football, whether that's performance,
42:26
culture, strategy that you've kind of felt have from doing
42:30
that direct role at the football club, you may be brought into
42:34
vendor town and vice versa. Definitely, I think I mean from
42:38
a, you know, a leadership perspective, I think I always
42:41
think back to to sales people and sales opportunities.
42:45
And I think sometimes if you, you know, if you're a striker
42:48
and you've not scored for 10 games and the classic saying of
42:52
you just need one to go in off your backside.
42:54
I think it's the same with salespeople sometimes, you know,
42:56
if they've had a bit of a barren spell, which, you know, they do.
43:00
So all the best salespeople I've ever worked with have have had
43:03
barren spells. And they sometimes just need,
43:07
you know, want to come out of left field and going off the
43:09
backside and they then tend to go on a bit of a run.
43:11
But yeah, I think, I think motivation's quite key.
43:15
I think with the team that we have at Benderton, it's, you
43:19
know, it's a, it's a constant pace.
43:21
Things are evolving quickly. There's no real downtime.
43:24
There's no one sat twiddling the thumbs.
43:26
So things are moving at pace. And you've got to try and keep
43:29
people motivated in the same way you would with with footballers
43:32
or, you know, with any professional sports people.
43:36
And a lot of the, a lot of the lessons I've learned as a leader
43:39
came from some of the managers I played for.
43:42
That's quite a big thing for me to learn, taking lessons from
43:45
them. And also just, you know, in, in
43:48
life, I think just having that discipline to be involved in
43:51
professional sports, you know, it's, it's difficult.
43:54
There's only so many people or the, you know, the amount of
43:56
people that get the opportunity to play professional sports or
44:00
be involved in professional sports, that the percentage is
44:02
tiny. And I think it gives you that
44:06
discipline that, that willingness to maybe push
44:09
yourself, you know, an extra yard and, and it's, you know, it
44:14
that's they're the good things, I suppose, out of it.
44:16
The, the, the maybe the negative aspects of the getting the work
44:20
life balance right. I mean, it's I do this as a
44:22
hobby with the football club, but.
44:24
Sounds familiar to people, yeah. Exactly, you know it's consuming
44:28
and your disposable time of an evening of a weekend tends to be
44:33
taken up. Sacrifice a lot, right?
44:35
You've got to sacrifice a lot. You've got to.
44:37
I mean, I involve the family as much as I can with the football
44:40
club because it makes a lot more sense to me to to be able to
44:43
lean on them and involve them so they don't think it's just my
44:46
hobby. It's very much a family thing.
44:49
Nice. And John, before we wrap up, the
44:52
shelf of shame was the one thing in retail tech payments sub
44:57
security that you'd happily banish forever.
45:01
Oh, I think we we said it there. It's, it's that you know, that,
45:09
that cybersecurity could, you know, compliance rather than
45:13
risk. I think too many retailers, I
45:15
think I'd love just for just for retail in general to move on and
45:20
as not to be looking over our shoulder as tech providers all
45:24
the time around emerging threats.
45:25
I think the more that boards took it serious, the better it'd
45:31
be for everybody, both payments, you know, in terms of liability
45:34
and chargebacks for tech in terms of, you know, potential
45:37
data breaches and for the retailers.
45:41
I think that would be key for me, not having to hear someone
45:44
say I'll, I'll pass that on to our IT director.
45:47
Proactive rather than reactive. I think so.
45:48
I think that would be the one thing I would change.
45:51
And everyone taking it seriously.
45:53
Yeah, happy to happy to put that on there.
45:55
Where can people get in touch with you?
45:57
Find out more about Vendor Town about working with the football
45:59
club. LinkedIn, Mr. John Coyne, you
46:04
can find me on, on LinkedIn. I'm certainly not as proud as
46:08
you 2 guys on there, but I'm, I'm, I'm certainly getting
46:10
better. I, I do look at it at least once
46:13
a day now, whereas I used to go months without seeing or reading
46:16
or posting anything. Vendetsen.com Check out
46:21
audit.com. Amazing.
46:22
Thanks so much for your time, John.
46:24
Thank you.