It's that time of the year again where we sit down, and reflect on the year that was, 2018.
We could crunch some numbers and try and measure how much we've grown, but we're sure that you've been crunching inventory and accounting numbers all year long. There are many other ways that a company can measure growth and success.
Stepping outside your comfort zone 2018 has seen Coconut Consulting expand its client base interstate further outside of Victoria, with a number of new clients joining us from New South Wales and South Australia. I've been fortunate to run on-site training interstate for some of these businesses - being a cloud integrator, we are able to run conferencing and training remotely, but where we can, we like to be there alongside our customers for face-to-face support and be there to answer the hard questions.
The human element
Watching our customers grow and adapt to their new cloud systems, set up and deployed by us, has been a rewarding process. It's sometimes not easy managing people and process change, especially in a new business, or converting to a new system, and we've found that empowering our end users to confidently do their job has played a big part in the ongoing success of their cloud system. We've had our share of challenges along the way, but we thank you for choosing us as your trusted cloud integrator and completing a project or implementation with us.
Reflection
Like us - we're sure you can reflect back on the past 12 months and see what went well, and what could use some improvement. It's time to see where you could take your business in 2019 - think of where you could be this time next year.
What can you look forward to in 2019?
We've spent some time further developing some specialised service offerings in the areas of barcoding, reporting and logistics. We offer more than just consulting, software setup and integration services - we can help you get your shop set up with barcodes, provide stocktake mentoring and assistance, or even help you with getting parcels shipped faster.
If you're finding inventory or accounting discrepancies between two or more cloud systems, and can't quite pinpoint why they're occurring - let us dive in deeper and provide you with a detailed report and analysis. We're also looking at BI (Business Intelligence) solutions as this is an area clients have requested assistance with.
Ongoing support will continue into 2019 - we have further refined our support plan offerings to ensure that the post-implementation and transition period is as smooth as possible. We have recorded a number of video training sessions for our Vimeo channel, with plans to expand our training catalogue next year.
3PL integration and logistics will be another focus for us in 2019. We are working with some new software partners to expand our solutions in this area as we see an increase in online, omnichannel retail. Bricks-and-mortar stores, still remain strong, with our cloud partners improving their POS offerings and allowing click-and-collect options for customers who still wish to visit in-store.
Holiday Closure Period
Unless you have a deployment planned with us on January 2nd, 2019, we hope that you have a merry and bright festive season. We love the beach, and will be taking a well needed break for some fun in the sun. Wherever you choose to go, travel safe, take care and we hope to catch you in the New Year.
Our office will be closed from 5pm, Friday 21st December 2018, and will re-open on Monday 7th January, 2019. Limited support will be available during this period.
Happy Holidays from the Coconut Consulting Team,
Greg, Christine, Gavan, and Rowena