In the past few years, a significant part of the transformations for businesses in the retail industry have been technology led, connecting CIOs and CTOs in a cross strategic collaboration with leaders across their organizations.
Several retail businesses in North America, Europe and Asia are observed to penetrate in new markets by continuously improving user experience and customer journey for key areas which directly impact their sales including; online shopping, product diversity and product category expansion.
So far, all such efforts have been heavily dependent on underlying technologies (cloud solutions, mobility, big data and analytics) and eventually determine the success, speed to market and profitability for each venture.
In one of the key lists of strategic initiatives planned for 2016 by retail CIOs, a lot can be understood about how their efforts have resulted in the current year and based on that, here’s what they plan for 2016 as their key technology initiatives are executed:
1. Data security
According to a recent NRF CIO survey, 97% of retailers consider data security as one of their top concerns. Hence, it was evident that it is going to be one of the top priorities for the initiatives to be taken by retail CIOs and CTOs in 2016.
Besides, data security extends beyond simple card or plastic data and includes any personally identifiable information. Retail CIOs and CTOs are staying abreast of emerging threats and trends by joining the NRF IT CIO Security Council and reviewing breach response procedures to make sure their business is prepared for any such event. Moreover, reacting quickly is paramount to surviving a data breach
2. Convergence of sales channels
The separation among various retail selling channels is fading away quickly as retailers integrate inventory management, merchandising and supply chain operations to leverage customer fulfillment across all channels.
Now, CIOs and CTOs can expect to observe the convergence of currently independent mobile, e-commerce and store-based POS with selling systems which share pricing, promotions, tax engines and a product unit’s information to name a few. The data silos will be merged, and handoffs between customer touch points will be seamless.
3. Embrace mobility
As observed in the past, mobile is important to the retail enterprise in two ways. One, your customers would want to use mobile devices to interact with your brand, since use of smartphones and data services has exponentially increased worldwide. Customers will use mobile to interact by either logging in a mobile based browser to access your website, directly download your mobile app, or interact through social sites. Two, the use of mobile devices while in-store has been observed as a trending behavior among many customers. For these reasons, many retailers are using responsive design to cover different form-factors of devices.
As a technology company helping several businesses in retail space, here’s a quick tip; when developing apps, look to reduce costs by abstracting away from native apps and toward HTML5. Additionally, consider how a consumer’s mobile device might make the in-store shopping experience better. It is very important you decide early on, if you should be using QR codes for product information, beacons for contextual offers, and NFC for checkout.
4. Have a better picture on consumer journey
As market dynamics and technology evolves, it also redefines the roles and hats many CIOs and CTOs for a retail business might have to wear. Among many businesses, it is observed that several CIOs and CMOs now find themselves collaborating almost daily to define, influence and enable consumer journeys with respect to their brands. It’s important to understand the different ways in which consumers interact with the brand, using different channels to research, purchase, and service products. Once these are known, it’s easier to look for ways to enhance processes to better serve consumers. By collaborating on end-to-end journeys and enabling technology to deliver results, CIOs and CMOs will see the larger picture and uncover more opportunities to grow sales.
5. Leverage Big Science
Much has been said recently about Big Data, but most retailers have been dealing with Big Data for years. Data by itself isn’t terrifically valuable until it becomes actionable, and the key to converting data into action is science. Big Science might be the better term since it focuses on the results and not the data itself. Retailers should always be looking for ways to draw conclusions from the data to help make better decisions. Evaluate how data is being used to make decisions, and look for better ways to apply science. Automate analytics, and make BI accessible to everyone in the organization.
6. Increase inventory visibility and fulfillment
Presenting the brand in a unified way allows customers to research and buy with the most flexibility. Retailers have to predict the demand, order / make the right products or to name them – products in-demand, and have the flexibility to sell them via multiple channels. Some of the service-enabled (SOA) inventory systems are accurate and are available to other applications which allow decision makers to look for ways to bring both forecasting and planning for digital and stores together.
7. Remove Costs and lower total cost of ownership – Migration to cloud
As is always the case, CIOs and CTOs must prioritize ways to reduce system and operational costs throughout the organization. Server consolidation or data migration via cloud deployments is always a good place to start. Standardization also helps to drive down costs, hence setting enterprise standards for database, middleware, programming languages, etc. is very essential.
With that said, tech-savvy consumers and a highly competitive global market keep retailers on fast-forward in the adoption of the latest in technology solutions. As a result, retail CIOs often lead other industries in using new technologies to enable business strategy and growth for their organizations. Thus, in a nut-shell, security, convergence of shopping channels, inventory visibility and big science will drive retail priorities well into 2016.
At TkXel, we are always ready to help you with your business, transforming your ideas into highly successful technology solutions to optimize your existing processes and boost revenues. We would love to have you in our Discovery Workshop and define the possibilities, to make a tangible difference. If you would like to know more about how we can utilize our resources and expertise to provide assistance, just drop us a line at services@tkxel.com. To read more about Enterprise Mobility, please feel free to visit our website anytime.