Joseph Smith, Chairman & CEO Seasoned entrepreneur, Joseph Smith, has weathered battles and demanding situations in the literary sense and otherwise; a former marine who served the country and later took leadership positions in many companies, Smith has all the qualities of a good leader. “Leadership is not about making yourself better; leadership is making everyone around you better, and that is our philosophy,” says Smith, the chairman and CEO at ARSG. The company has more than two decades of experience in the retail and merchandising industry, and it is this leadership expertise that they translate into catering to the marketing and resourcing needs of companies, empowering decision-makers to achieve success at storefront levels by applying a unique approach. A central feature of the company is the excellent relationship they maintain with all their clients, and consequently, the retention of the clients in the long run.
The company provides businesses with a simple strategy and enables them to advance in their respective domains while adhering to federal and other compliance mandates. A client approaching the company to handle diverse situations is introduced to one of ARSG’s several managers. From that point on, the manager is the client’s point of contact and will handle their brand on a daily basis. The responsibility of developing a dashboard, store lists, and questionnaires for the client, falls on the shoulders of ARSG’s director of IT. This is done to ensure pristine delivery and prime performance of the solution once a client is brought onboard. ASRG employs on-field, and in-store staff for all their clients, and the job of these staff members is to ensure that the clients’ products are well stocked at stores and have the perfect visibility in shelf options.
Leadership is not making yourself better, leadership is making everyone around you better, and that is our philosophy
The staff keeps continuous tabs on store data and syncs data to the servers on a daily basis so that the clients can see the data on their dashboards almost immediately. The results from the perceived data show clients where there is a need to improve, and also the increment and loss that they are likely to incur.
A longstanding client of ARSG was facing a situation where their distributors were not able to put their product on the shelves of a chain of stores. This led to the chain contacting the client with an ultimatum that the brand’s products may face removal from store shelves if they were not moving and the client contacted ARSG for assistance. The budget of the project being a constraint, ARSG intervened and agreed to go ahead with the program at no cost to the client. ARSG analyzed data from the chain and the client and eliminated anomalies obstructing the client’s products reaching the aisles. The timely mediation resulted in the chain retaining the client’s products.
In addition to maintaining a good rapport with their clientele, the ARSG team is also supportive of their own task force, whom they see as their number one asset. The company offers some of the best employee benefits the industry has proposed and has maintained impeccable records in employer-employee relationships.
In the future, ARSG is looking to jump into the AI bandwagon, by embedding the technology into its reporting systems, enabling the automation of the features in the current system. The implementation of AI is not to replace the on-field staff of the company but to enhance their existing workloads. Their new technology is slated for release in the first quarter of 2019. Concurrently, the company is also moving into the construction arena, assisting chains to rebuild or remodel stores that are more manufacturer- and consumer-centric, a field that is new to the company.
