Guest Bio

Alex Goodwin | Digital Marketing Manager

The Teamwork Commerce platform is built on a natively integrated framework, this strong foundation enables Teamwork Commerce to provide efficient omnichannel experiences to retailers across industries. With the strong cloud backend, retailers are able to connect a variety of legacy systems, tools and integrations to drive more engaging retail experiences through multiple channels.

What is Teamwork Cares? Alex Goodwin, (Former) Digital Marketing Manager at Teamwork Commerce joins us to discuss. Alex was a part of the Teamwork Commerce family for one year and was a member of the Teamwork Cares committee.

Overview​

The Teamwork Cares volunteer initiative stemmed from a June 19, 2020 staff meeting. CEO Michael Mauerer decided to use this meeting as a forum for employees to openly discuss the income inequality, racial injustice and social inequality happening in the world at that moment, as well as frustration with the second wave of COVID-19.  June 19th was actually an important date to have this meeting, as this is a significant date in US history, commemorating the emancipation of African-American slaves and equal opportunities for everyone. 

Teamwork Cares has three pillars of social equality initiatives: 1) community action and local events, 2) educational mentorship for students and 3) adult mentorship. Some local events that Teamwork has participated in include Feeding America/Feeding Tampa Bay, a virtual 5K that raised money for the United Negro Fund and My Stuff back to school drive filling up backpacks for needy school kids.  Lunch Pals is a mentor/mentee program that pairs a Teamwork employee with a young student. Adult mentorship includes helping others with business, entrepreneurial and life skills.

A by-product of each of these social equality initiatives has been creating community within Teamwork itself; and by raising awareness of significant issues and the struggles of others, we are bridging the gap on difficult conversations and creating a safe place to have these notion of equality discussions.

Guest Bio

Artem Nikulchenko | Chief Software Architect

As the Chief software architect, Artem powers the backend of Teamwork Commerce, communicating between the leadership & development teams. Artem has an extensive background in development and an array of comprehension skills. Artem has a PHD in applied mathematics & currently works as an associate professor at Kharkiv university. In addition to this Artem is an author of 20+ scientific papers and certified by Google cloud as a Cloud Architect. His unique experience and knowledge supports a complex software infrastructure that is constantly evolving to leverage more functionality and the latest technologies in the industry. Artem also works with a kid’s training program IT University, designed to “turn a child’s computer hobby into a conscious choice for a profession” empowering children and young people to explore the potential of software development as a career.

Overview

Long Term Business Growth | Nurturing the next generation is as much about empowering change as it is recruiting valuable, engaged and innovative candidates for employment. With software development finding the right talent can be challenging, especially to bring into a cohesive global organization. Artem is truly proud of his non-profit efforts to support the next generation of software development leaders & their long term professional opportunities.

Effective development projects start with an engaged, active and knowledgeable team, the Cloudworks team works to develop a hiring process that focuses on identifying the best prospects and ensuring that they are supported and empowered to join the community of like minded individuals driven by a shared culture.

There is value to strong company culture, it can be less important to identify candidates with experience, than it is to have a mindset of willingness to learn and stay engaged in the development process. The entire team is always working to identify the latest opportunities and technologies to drive effective backend development. Artem is heavily engaged in the Google Cloud infrastructure and writes often about the complexities and benefits of these services.

Guest Bio

Ron Sparks | Lead Mobile Product Design

As a key member of the product design team, Ron is tasked with the difficult challenge of turning innovative features into a reality, with a well structured & clean interface that enables rapid training and supports a range of functionality seamlessly. Ron has an extensive background in design, he helped to design and deploy self checkout UX/UI in Japan, worked for Nike & eBay prior to joining Teamwork Commerce. He currently blogs around the creative process and is an advocate for customer centric user experiences.

Overview

Product Design Is Complicated

Designing user experiences is a significant challenge embracing many considerations, for technology companies designers have to focus on creating user experiences that are simple to use and easy to engage with. In the context of Teamwork Commerce these user experiences have to support the goal of the platform: being a seamless part of the retail experience.

Innovation

User experience, design and growth are all individual factors and must be considered tangentially as well as separately, not every experience has to be customer centric. But, all user experiences must be engaging, seamless and supportive of the goal of the retail experience. Design needs to be flexible and support the retail experience.

You V. The Customer

While it may seem that an experience should be designed from your vision, it is also essential to realize your desire is not the same as the customer’s. Impulsively designers will work to show the value of the backend & it’s complexity to evaluate the experience. But, customers just want the value. A key concept in writing is show, don’t tell. The efficacy of a user experience is truly evaluated by the customer being seamlessly able to complete their desire without being slowed down by the interface.

Ron has a blog centered on his design ethos as well as trends in the world of user experience design. If you would like to read more about his approach: http://ron-sparks.com/

Guest Bio

Leigh Lawrence | Training Specialist at Teamwork Commerce

As the training specialist at Teamwork Commerce, Leigh works hard to educate and support Teamwork Commerce staff, clients and partners across the world to gain a complete comprehension around the complete functionality and utility of the Teamwork Commerce platform. She provides a high level overview of the platform, in addition, to targeted training sessions around key elements within the Teamwork Commerce ecosystem.

Overview

Starting With Teamwork

Leigh came to Teamwork Commerce after a long term experience running a Brick & Mortar game store. This experience enabled Leigh to learn a lot about the day to day operations of a retail environment, establish a strong backend comprehension of point of sale, order management & inventory control. Leigh actually used an early iteration of the Teamwork Commerce platform in her retail store, this experience practically educated Leigh on the functionality and efficacy of the Teamwork platform, inspiring her to join the Teamwork Commerce team.

The Teamwork Ecosystem

Retailers can benefit from an array of Teamwork Commerce functionality, provided across the ecosystem. For Leigh gaining an understanding of the complete opportunity for backend management as it pertains to driving more engaging store experiences is critical. Teamwork Commerce is more than just a POS – the platform offers a full range of functionality from inventory management to Order Management System.

The Training Process

Educating clients, partners & staff around the complete feature set, enables retailers to create a more effective and valuable system. An effective training process is critical to drive engaging retail experiences and ensure optimization of the in – store and omnichannel sales process. With Teamwork Commerce & effective backend training retailers are able to access valuable sales experiences.

Commerce Talks is a retail industry podcast, centered on the topic of empowering unified retail across verticals. This podcast is hosted by Teamwork Strategic Partnerships Manager Danny Di Nicolantonio.

Each week he welcomes a guest from Teamwork Commerce, our partner ecosystem or array of retail clients. These discussions are designed to explore these relationships, explain key elements of Teamwork Commerce, and educate retailers about the benefits that are accessible through Omnichannel retail.

Commerce Talks is available across all podcast platforms, as well as here on the blog section of the Teamwork Commerce Website. Listen to the podcast trailer below.