Our software for newsagents can be easily configured to suit the needs of many businesses and situations.  One area where adjustment is easy is with the touchsreen layout.  The photo shows a touchscreen layout for newsagents in Western Australia.  It includes local products which you would not see elsewhere.

The screen was designed for a particular newsagent who wanted more products on the touchscreen that we would usually provide.  Our preference is for bigger buttons.  In this situation they wanted smaller buttons and more products to serve their particular need.  Our software easily handled their requirement without the need for a change or a visit.  They could also include product logos to make identifying products easier.

Flexibility in software configuration is important to newsagents and all retailers.  We are proud of the flexibility we have built into the software and that our customers do use this.

Changing a touch button can be done quickly at the store level without risk.  Likewise, securing buttons so that they cannot be changed is also easy.

We have been busy at the GNS Market Fair in Perth today. The stand has has had a constant stream of sales prospects and existing newsagent customers.  Western  Australia is a good and growing marketplace for us.

We put on a good display with three people staffing the stand - to ensure that the loved Tower Systems customer service can be experienced by everyone stopping by.

Our installation team will be busy based on the business we have seen today - and the fair still has three hours to go.

Congratulations to GNS for putting on a good day … thanks especially for the regular flow of food and drink!

PS. Don’t be put off by the photo, it was taken at 8:45am before the fair opened.

Yesterday we published advice to our Victorian newsagent customers on how to handle the unexpected and quite complex campaign announced by the Herald Sun earlier this week.  While the timing of the promotion has been pushed back, we have worked hard to ensure that Tower Newsagents are prepared to manage the promotion with our software.

Newsagents around the country have been receiving advice on compliance with standards monitored by XchangeIT, the industry standard EDI platform.  To help  Newsagents our newsagency software refresh their knowledge of the operational requirements of the standards, we have scheduled two of our popular and highly regarded online magazine management workshops next week.  Access to these online workshops is free to Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

The commercial imperative of compliance is that it reduces the cost of accessing the XchangeIT platform.

One of the key differences between Tower Systems and other software companies serving newsagents is our engagement beyond providing newsagency management software.

Owning newsagencies ourselves separates us from every other software company and takes into deeper engagement in the newsagency channel.

This deeper engagement with newsagents have been evident for many years and is, we believe, a key reason around three times more newsagents partner with Tower Systems than our nearest competitor.

We are always looking for opportunities to leverage greater value for our newsagent customers from our newsagent community.  This is evident in the sales benchmark studies we undertake.  They are highly regarded in the newsagency channel and used by suppliers and others to guide business strategy and provide an insight into overall channel performance.

Yesterday, we announced a new and exclusive initiative to help newsagents in the area of magazine management.  We have offered Tower Newsagents the opportunity to participate in a project designed to place  issues relating to magazine distribution under the spotlight in a formal situation with a view to facilitating structural change.

We are inviting access to business data which we will collate and present to appropriate parties with the assistance of skilled professionals.

Our product is data based.  We intend to use accurate newsagent supply, return and other data to provide an up to date picture of magazine distributor performance.

Our trials over recent weeks have highlighted the challenges many newsagents face as a result of the current magazine supply model.  While our software has excellent facilities for managing magazines, these tools can only react to magazine distributor behaviour.

Our commitment to our 1,700+ Tower Newsagent customers is to use their business performance data to seek a fairer model which will see the unique magazine distribution system in Australia maintained rather than killed off by poor business practices.

Our last national study on magazine related cash flow in newsagencies was in 2005.  That led to some changes in supplier performance but not enough.

With better systems in place in newsagencies now, a much bigger tower Newsagent community, the support of some independent publishers and the assistance of some outside professionals, we will be leveraging the Tower Systems point of difference on behalf of all newsagents.

Watch this space for more news.

We are finalising plans for a series of newsagency business development workshops around the country.  These are to follow on from our successful Newsagency of the Future series which concluded last month.  Participation will be free and available to our 1,700 strong newsagent customer community.

Each participant will bring to the workshop current business performance data and an agreement of confidentiality on the discussions.  The workshop itself will explore business performance, the opportunities for success and changes which others are embracing in pursuit of success.

The workshops are expected to provide participants with practical newsagency back office improvements along with plenty of revenue growth opportunities.

This is another Tower Advantage ^TM initiative.

We are all set for the GNS Market Fair in Sydney this weekend.  Our stand (see photo from yesterday afternoon) is setup with our latest software, some exciting new hardware and a few surprises to exsite NSW/ACT newsagents and stationers who visit the show.

With over 700 newsagent customers in NSW/ACT and more than 100 added last year, this is an important trade show for us in connecting with our customer base as well as helping the remaining newsagents here to come and join our user community.

We have a terrific presence at the Market Fair thanks to the best IT people serving newsagents in NSW/ACT working on our team.  We will have sales and technical support people on our stand to provide the best possible customer experience.

We caught up with plenty of customers and some sales prospects at the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne yesterday.  We are sure to meet with more today.  Our stand is in an excellent location, showing off what is great about Tower Systems: excellent software for newsagents, friendly high quality support, innovation (two iPads on the stand demonstrating our software plus a new customer display carrying advertising) as well as strong industry help and support.

We had a couple of newsagents question us about migration of newsagents to Tower Systems from other systems.  We were ready with a list detailing the 30 newsagents who shifted in five months recently.  In providing proof we were able to demonstrate our truthfulness.

We have some nice innovation on display on our stand at the GNS Market fair in Melbourne this weekend. In addition to the latest release of our software, we will also be showing off our exclusive Gordon and Gotch supply adjustment initiative, our Tyro broadband eftpos link – now used by 400 of our customers, the Blackhawk gift cards and a range of other facilities which help Tower Newsagents make more money from their IT investment.

If you find yourself at the Melbourne GNS Market Fair this weekend, stop by and say hello.

We have published a Frequently Asked Questions document for Tower Newsagents implementing the Blackhawk giftcard offering.  This document addresses the most common questions we have been asked and provides more training opportunities for our customers and their employees.  It also helps more Tower Newsagents join the community promoting the Blackhawk platform.

In addition to the FAQ document, we have publisherd a Tower specific sign up form, a collateral order form and a commission / price list.  All of this documentation demonstrates our professional approach to building a solid business with our customers and our supplier partners.

We will continue to develop and promote opportunities through which our customers can build a better return from their IT investment.

Yesterday morning we participated in a productive face to face meeting with senior management from Fairfax Media Publication Solutions to discuss the transition from NDD to Fairfax. FMPS is a separate division of the Fairfax company, operating at some distance from the newspaper distribution side. The discussion canvassed direct accounts, supply and return arrangements and promotional opportunities.  While their model is still being developed, they have committed to using XchangeIT and adhering to the industry’s magazine distribution IT standards 100%.

We expect to have further discussions once they have met with other newsagency channel stakeholders.

We now have 75 of our newsagent customers signed up to sell the popular Blackhawk giftcard range. Our customers receive tactical advice which will drive Blackhawk giftcard business.

Our unique approach to the Blackhawk offer is the Tower Advantage ^TM in action.  Too often, software companies deliver technology without tools, advice and assistance to enable customers to convert the tools into income.  This is what we do here at Tower Systems every day.

We are hosting a Newsagency of the Future workshop in Newcastle this Monday at 11am. The session will be held at the Crowne Plaza Newcastle, Cnr Merewether Street & Wharf Road, Newcastle.  Anyone is welcome to attend this free workshop.

The first data from our April - June 2010 Newsagent Sales Benchmark Study was released yesterday morning and immediately sparked interest and others who watch such matters.  We have provided further information to publishers and a couple of media outlets interested in the story.

We undertake these benchmark studies to help newsagents, suppliers and others be more informed about the performance of the channel and through this mate better business decisions.

We have scheduled a Newsagency of the Future workshop for Newcastle for Monday, July 19 at 11am.  This session will be held in a hotel in downtown Newcastle - to facilitate the widest access possible.  Click here to book.  Anyone is welcome to attend, access it free.

Our Newsagency of the Future workshop series has attracted close to 400 newsagent attendees.  This is a terrific response from newsagents keen to build stronger businesses as they navigate significant structural change.

We are thrilled to have had an opportunity to present this series, meet with so many newsagents and to show off the Tower Advantage ^TM to a broader community.

Work has already commenced on a follow up session, details of which should be announced later this month.

Tower Systems is the only supplier to newsagents offering this level of practical business training to newsagents.  Our commitment to these face to face opportunities is supplemented by our considerable investment in free online training sessions.

Our investment, like this latest training series, in the newsagency channel is another reason more newsagents use our software than all other software companies combined.

For those who attended, we have now sent out a copy of the slides and the performance data presented.

We are hosting three Newsagency of the Future workshops this week:

• Geelong.  Tuesday, July 6, 2010.  11am.  Mecure Hotel.
• Gold Coast.  Thursday, July 8. 10am.  Surfers Paradise Marriott.
• Melbourne.  Friday, July 9, 11am.   Geebung Polo Club.  Hawthorn.

Access is free to anyone wanting to attend.  Click here to book.

We have three dates remaining for the Newsasgency of the Future workshop series:

• Geelong.  Tuesday, July 6, 2010.  10am.  Mecure Hotel.
• Gold Coast.  Thursday, July 8. 10am.  Surfers Paradise Marriott.
• Melbourne.  Friday, July 9, 11am.   Geebung Polo Club.  Hawthorn.

Access is free to anyone wanting to attend.  Click here to book.

To help out a newsagent supplier, we are running a private poll for Tower Newsagents.  The response will help the supplier better understand newsagent preferences on an important operational issue.

We are pleased to be able to help newsagent and other suppliers with fresh and acccurate market intelligence.   We have a great community of customers and their thoughtful pariticpation and responses help drive better outcomes for everyone.

We are close to completing new development work for some suppliers to newsagents who want to engage in electronic trading but outside the XchangeIT framework used by key newsagent suppliers.

Our latest work will make it easier for the participating suppliers to commercially engage with newsagents. We will have an announcement for our customers shortly.

Network Services changed its approach to sending electronic invoices to newsagents.  Something has gone wrong with files for today’s magazines.  Many newsagents are opening their businesses this Monday morning without the files necessary for trading.

We have been in communication with senior people from Network Services over the weekend and advised them of the problems with today’s files as well as with the change in their approach to file distribution more generally.

While this work falls outside our area of software support, we are happy to robustly represent the interests of the 1,700 storng Tower Newsagent community.

Update (9:45am):  Just in from Network Services:

We’ve identified that a few issues where agents haven’t received files for on-sale today, unfortunately it doesn’t affect just one state the issue is widespread.

We are in the process of actioning complete resend of all files from the old file creation process, this process has already been kicked off and should start sending files within the next 1hr.

On behalf of all apologies for the errors over the weekend. I will contact you with any key updates.

Newsagents are responding well to our end of financial year offer of a free netbook computer with newsagency system purchases.  The offer has been communicated by mail and fax and is resulting in interest from newsagents without a system as well as some with a system and keen to move.

Every year at this time we have an end of financial year offer.  This year’s offer has hit a chord with newsagents looking for honest value from their technology purchase.  The Tower Systems added value of business support beyond the software itself is a genuine point of difference. We help newsagents switch from POS Solutions and Computerlink with conversion packages including transition help.

We have included photos of three of our sales team on the brochure to demonstrate the depth of our team.  Newsagents like to know who they are buying from and that they can speak with these people long after the system is purchased.

We have added more dates to the schedule for the free Newsagency of the Future workshop including Geelong on July 6 and Townsville on July 1 (in the evening).  These latest dates will probably see the current series out.  So far, more than 300 have registered to attend.  Click here for the latest flyer or click here to book online.

To guide newsagents in handling the non publication of the Australian Financial Review on Monday, the Queen’s Birthday holiday, we are reminding our newsagent software customers of advice sheet N14 which allows for this.

Plenty more of our South Australian newsagents have processed their Adelaide Advertiser newspaper home delivery accounts through our eziPass software.  The process at the newsagency sales counter is proving to be easy and turning the facility on through eziPass also easy.

Bringing this facility live for newsagents through our relationship with Touch Networks is another example of our leadership in the newsagency channel.  Our early work in SA well over a year ago set us up for roll out elsewhere should News Limited decide to head in this direction.