RSPA Recommended Read: Simplify – Plus How it Relates to AI in the Retail IT Channel

“RSPA Recommended Read” is a series of articles in which RSPA staff members share details from books we think would be helpful to leaders and aspiring leaders at VAR, ISV, and vendor member organizations.

By Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA

Recent interactions with two RSPA VAR members motivated me to review my book notes for Simplify: How the Best Businesses in the World Succeed, which I first read in 2018.

I’m eager to share those notes with you because there’s been a swarm of chatter in the channel about AI that’s got retail IT channel leaders a bit dizzy. One VAR even exclaimed on a recent RSPA community call, “I’m sick and tired of hearing about AI!”

Simplify can help us sort through all that head-spinning information. Let’s dive into some key passages from the book to see what insight it offers to VAR and ISV leaders today:

  1. The real title of this book could well be Simplify: If you don’t, they will. It is inevitable that sooner or later someone will come along and revolutionize your industry.
  1. Two ways to simplify: Price-Simplifying (cutting the price of a product or service in half, or more), and Proposition-Simplifying (creating a product that is useful, appealing, and very easy to use. e.g. iPad, Uber).
  1. In Steve Jobs’ own phrase, the product has to be “insanely great.” In our phrase, the product must be a joy to use; it must have a palpable “wow factor.”
  1. Somewhere along the line, one of the two simplifying strategies will need to spark your excitement. Picture what major success might look like, then decide between them.
  1. A price that is a fraction of the previous price for a desirable item will always create a vast new market.
  1. Product design is nearly everything in proposition-simplifying.
  1. The essential first step — make the user experience easy and simple — requires empathy with the user and a genuine simplifying mission.
  1. Five major themes how to make products easier to use: eliminate, make intuitive and easier, make faster, make smaller/lighter/more portable, and make easier to obtain.

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  1. In designing the Mac, Jobs eliminated all the function keys and cursor arrows, features that all other computer manufacturers thought were essential. “Do we need that part?”
  1. Simplicity for the user is complexity concealed.
  1. There are five ways to make a product or service more useful: vary performance — make more (or less) powerful, improve quality, add new capabilities, provide a wider range of products, and personalize.
  1. Every price revolution goes back to basics, back to economics, back to utility. Trade-offs usually involve dropping features and/or customers to get the price as low as possible.
  1. Opportunity lies wherever an industry has not yet been automated.
  1. “To survive for the long haul, you must passionately pursue the destruction of what you have created.” — Tom Peters
  1. No matter how the future plays out, you can bet that it will be simplifiers who deliver benevolent change in acceptable, affordable, and exciting ways.
  1. The large majority of business returns accrue to simplifiers.
  1. The gods of economics and customer psychology favor the simplifier.

RSPA Recommended Read Rating: 9.0/10

To be honest, rereading those notes made me nervous about what lies ahead. Simplifying can be an incredibly daunting task especially for SMB executives who already have a full plate with their day job (that often stretches into evenings and weekends).

What calms me is that Simplify is also clarifying for our industry. While we’re not Steve Jobs, we’ve executed some pretty serious simplifying ourselves. The shift to the recurring revenue, as-a-Service business model is an example of price simplifying.

Free POS, derided when it first rocked our industry 15 years ago, is offered in some form by many solution providers today. What used to cost a merchant thousands of dollars up front can be sold today for nothing or very little up front followed by monthly fees on the solution, payments, and ever-expanding services.

I was part of the RSPA Vendor Working Group meetings where as-a-Service seemed impossible in our channel. But son of a gun if we didn’t put our heads together, try/test/measure/adapt, and radically price simplify POS solutions.

That’s history. Now we need to focus on how simplifying relates to AI, perhaps today’s #1 challenge and #1 opportunity for the channel.

My perspective is that AI for VARs and ISVs is mostly about proposition simplifying – creating a product that’s useful, very easy to use, “insanely great,” and has a palpable “wow factor.”

It would be hubristic for me to say I have all the answers, but I can confidently say I see a path. Two months ago, the RSPA Board tasked the RSPA leadership team to create resources to guide RSPA members forward in relation to AI.

Both the ScanSource and BlueStar partner conferences in September focused on AI. (For full details on those events, read ScanSource 2025 Partner First: In Our New AI World, VARs Will Lead the Way and VARTECH 2025 Analysis: The AI-Powered Future of the Retail IT Channel is “Supercharged Closeness.”)

And, working with my RSPA coworkers, we’ve recruited over 40 individuals to launch the RSPA AI Advisory Group that will meet for the first time later this month. The recruitment process has been more than emailing meeting invitations; I’ve obtained from our members exclusive insights on the most effective framework for the AI-influenced retail IT channel.

Here’s our path forward (as far ahead as I can see) at the start of Q3 2025:

  • There’s incredible AI brainpower inside the RSPA community, recruiting for the AI Advisory Group has revealed. When forming the group, we were open to bringing on outside advisors, but it appears that won’t be necessary. You might already know AI experts Jerry Abiog of Standard Insights and Dennis Wilson (aka “AI Dennis”) of DBC Technologies based on their past content contributions to the RSPA. And you might have heard from the heads of several AI-focused software providers on the latest episode of “ISV’s Spill The Tea.” But did you know that also in our community (and on the AI Advisory Group) are an AI expert solutions architect from Intel, the VP of Analytics & AI from Daitrix, and the EVP/CTO from Verifone?
  • One of two key areas for solution providers to investigate is internal efficiency-focused AI applications. Think ISVs using AI to assist with coding and VARs using AI applications to instantly write a proposal based on a recorded conversation blended with your past most effective proposals.
  • The other key area is the greatest opportunity for VARs and ISVs: external revenue-generating AI applications they can sell to merchants. AI-assisted solutions are generating a “wow factor” today. For example, some QSRs (quick-service restaurants) are designing stores with all customer-facing tasks automated through voice AI, digital signage, and kiosks. In the food prep area, cameras integrated with the POS and KDS (kitchen display system) alert the worker of an incorrect ingredient or food contamination, ensuring order accuracy.
  • Applying appropriate critical thinking to decisions related to AI will significantly determine a solution provider’s trajectory. Two VARs told us that determining what AI to integrate into their solutions is significantly different. For example, waiting for a new-and-improved version of a POS product is often a smart move for VARs. But with AI, because the improvements are happening so frequently, you have to go with what works well for your merchants today or you’ll never escape the loop of what’s new tomorrow. 

In addition to the RSPA AI Advisory Group, another AI-related resource for the retail IT channel will be the upcoming RSPA Inspire Leadership Conference, Feb. 1-4, 2026, in Hawaii. During the interactive workshops at Inspire, expect to see what I call AI AI: Artificial Intelligence Actionable Information.

A top goal for the event will be arming attendees with details on (1) internally-applied AI applications to increase their efficiency and (2) “insanely great” AI applications VARs and ISVs can integrate into their solution set, sell to merchants, generate more revenue, and improve customer loyalty.

To help chart your journey forward – before someone else does – purchase your copy of Simplify here.

Be sure to save the date for the retail IT channel’s #1 trade show, education conference, and networking event: RetailNOW 2026, July 26-28 at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas

Jim Roddy is the President and CEO of the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA). He has been active in the retail IT channel since 1998, including 11 years as the President of Business Solutions Magazine, six years as an RSPA board member, one term as RSPA Chairman of the Board, and several years as a business coach for VARs, ISVs, and MSPs. Jim has been recognized as one of the world’s Top Retail Experts by RETHINK Retail and is regularly requested to speak at industry conferences on SMB best practices. He is author of two books – The Walk-On Method To Career & Business Success and Hire Like You Just Beat Cancer – and is host of the award-winning RSPA Trusted Advisor podcast. For more information, contact JRoddy@GoRSPA.org.