Recently, APG Cash Drawer’s President, Mark Olson, contributed to VSR’s 4th Annual Review and Outlook. The magazine interviewed top industry leaders to find out what they think 2011 will bring for the Channel, technology and business. Below is Mark’s excerpt from this article.

In 2011, as a result of many things, we anticipate that business optimism will continue to gradually increase. Corporations have recently been sitting on the sidelines with more cash (as a percentage of total GDP) than at any time in the last 50 years, and we believe they are gaining more confidence to be able to deploy that capital for effective business purposes.

In the past, we often were able to lean on some reasonable business assumptions and rely on a more predictable marketplace to be able to forecast future demand. The industry is undergoing significant change right now-hardware is getting smaller, cheaper and more standardized; and mobile is accelerating. Applications will reside on mobile devices and in the clouds. The new normal will likely require us to be more flexible and increasingly adapt to the continually changing marketplace. Business swings will probably be more volatile, wider and less predictable. The margin of victory will continue to get smaller and the performance expectation bar will continue to rise. It will require business leaders to rely less on rigid strategic planning as a guide to the future, and demand more flexibility and accelerated decision making in order to meet those increasing demands and rates of change in the marketplace. Speed and nimbleness are likely to win over size and scale.

Dealers and resellers, who can make various technologies relevant to retailers, play a critically important role in the demand generation side of the equation to deploy new technologies. While their importance in providing total solutions in this eco-system is clear, they will be under increasing margin and relevance pressure in the future. They will need the help and guidance of the specialty POS distributors, organizations like the RSPA (Retail Solutions Providers Association), and the manufacturers to help them continue to bring high value to the POS marketplace of the future. Personal relationships, even in this Internet age, will still matter and be a key ingredient to the success of the overall sales process. Customer loyalty in the future will need to be earned, not by dependency or availability, but by demonstrating your excellence and a strong value proposition.