In recent years, we’ve seen the demands of retail outpace the technology to support them. Aside from obvious changes in supply chain and packaging, the people aspect has also changed drastically. Today’s managers are responsible for setting direction, measuring accountability, and tracking progress of tasks for employees and third parties across the country they rarely see. It’s an issue facing all sizes of businesses and the majority of Walmart Suppliers.
April Seggebruch worked in the supplier world and dealt with this issue first-hand. Determined to find a solution, she used her CPG experience to co-found Movista. We visited with April on a recent 8th & Walton Conference Call podcast to find out what problems she set out to solve, how the Movista technology works, and how it simplifies workforce management for the future of retail.
Solving the Problem No One Else Sees
Acceptance can be costly in any business. April couldn’t accept that the practices in the supplier world for managing remote teams were sufficient. We began by asking her what she saw at the time and what drove her to strive for better.
“I was flabbergasted by certain activities within our industry, specifically the retail industry,” she begins. “The lack of technology, and the use of very antiquated technology (Excel spreadsheets or just pencil and paper!). It was being relied on to accomplish very essential necessary activities, specifically in retail merchandising.”
Knowing there was a better solution, April set out to bring new technology to the workforce. In forming her new company, she brought her CPG background to tech experts with a shared goal of simplifying the process for everyone. “When we started Movista, we knew there had to be a better way,” she explains. “There had to be a way to leverage technology to allow workers to be more efficient, productive, and ultimately execute at a higher level. That was really our mantra when we started to go out and find technologies that would allow companies to do more better, quicker, and faster.”
Combining All Touch-Points into ONE App
Experience from April’s days as a supplier combined with researching new technology has lead to Movista’s ONE App. She details how the app benefits today’s remote managers and the specific functions.
“We named it ONE because of the intent of being one single application that workers go to for all the tools and technology they need to do their jobs,” she says. “If you look at the landscape before Movista and you had applications or software to do your job, you had seven to ten of them. We wanted to collapse those multiple touch-points into one single application. Our customers use ONE by Movista application for:
- Payroll
- Scheduling
- Task management
- File sharing
- Validation of performance
- Continual improvement of performance
- Training
- Expense reimbursement
- Item manager (place orders and returns)
“Through our app, we’re able to understand exactly where an employee is throughout their entire day working for you,” she explains. “There’s accountability and visibility to their physical location and also to the things they’re doing. It not only allows you to verify the work’s being done, but also dictate the work flows to drive the most value for the company.”
A New App, But an Old Rule: Simplicity
April and the team at Movista have kept the idea simple from day one. By doing this, the app is ideal for small and large businesses alike. April explains how they kept the wide-user range in mind when going into the initial design.
“Everyone uses the same application, but they use it in slightly different ways,” she points out. “The way we designed and developed the app was with all these use cases (or customer sizes) in mind. We knew we had to drive value for a customer that had 15 employees all the way up to 15,000 employees.”
She continues by explaining the basics of the app really boil down to the basics of what all teams are trying to accomplish. “If you really break down a worker’s day, they’re really doing the same thing,” April says. “No matter how many are on your team, you’re all trying to accomplish the same core objectives: receive your work, complete your work, and report back on your work. There are ancillary things around there, but ultimately, that’s what the teams are trying to accomplish.”
How do you find the simplicity element? It’s as close as where your workers are most comfortable! April concludes by sharing why Movista chose its app layout and navigation to keep all things simple. “We made the ONE by Movista very user-friendly,” she says. “Ramp-up time and training time is minimal because it mirrors the current behaviors of your other mobile apps. If you’re familiar with Facebook, you’ll get very familiar with how to navigate Movista because it follows a similar flow.”
(To hear our entire interview with April Seggebruch, click here for the podcast. Also, to hear April talk about Women in Technology, click here for our bonus podcast!)
