Understanding Microsoft's Next Gen RMS Begins with a Closer Look at Dynamics AX for Retail’s POS, Mobile, Omnichannel Capabilities

The just-concluded Retail Realm conference in Las Vegas drew some 250 attendees. And the attendees, mostly Microsoft partners, eagerly took in the previews of the "next-gen RMS." But to understand next-gen RMS, they also needed  a detailed look at the possibilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail, a.k.a., Microsoft Dynamics for Retail, which provides the building blocks of the new SMB retail offering. 

"The vision of omnichannel is showing that all these channels are powered by AX, and now are powered by one commerce engine, the commerce runtime," explained Melissa Stern, senior industry analyst for retail, Microsoft Dynamics.

Jeff Blucher, Microsoft program manager, gave some insights into how the "next-gen RMS" will work by looking at the latest Dynamics AX retail features, at a session during the Retail Realm event, exploring the features of AX for Retail that can meet the use cases of brick-and-mortar retailers' floor sales, mobile, and Point of Sale (POS) use cases.

"If you look at what our overall vision was about, we have the centrally managed aspects, which are all the back office workloads -- whether warehouse managements, accounts, financials, pricing, merchandising, customer management, and customer relations," Blucher said.

Blucher's sessions at Retail Realm 2013 covered a range of use cases. He started from brick-and-mortar and POS and launched into a broader omnichannel vision, including mobile solutions.

First, Blucher discussed the "Point of Sale" (POS) devices, including the use of mobile devices:  "So, we use the term ‘line-busting' for a common scenario when the line gets too long, like during the holiday times. A whole new terminal is costly when you can quickly pull out a phone to help the line move along ...