We understand the challenges you face!
Delivering a seamless unified consumer shopping journey across channels, online and in-store requires a centralized and foolproof information system.
It’s not simply a question of ensuring the stability and security of your retail operations; you need to bring retail solutions to brand stakeholders that increase revenue, improve the customer experience, and pave the way for scaling internationally, all while keeping stock and order management streamlined.
Opportunities for CIOs, CTOs and IT Managers
The Challenges of Omnichannel Commerce
The digitalization of services and growth of mobile usage have disrupted the retail industry. Today’s customers are ultra-connected, better informed and more demanding. Beyond comparing products and price, they’re looking for unique and personalized shopping experiences tailored to their needs. In the era of omnichannel commerce, it’s become imperative for brands to evolve and offer a unified, frictionless sales journey that captures the full buying potential of each shopper, both in-store and online. These changes in consumer habits, along with the increased volume of omnichannel transactions that accompany them, put a strain on retailers’ information systems.
This is the new status quo, which comes with issues familiar to experienced technology professionals. Namely, how do you equip your information system to meet the challenges of omnichannel? How do you mechanize the instant processing of increasingly complex transactional data? What’s the best way to integrate your e-commerce platform, customer database, and inventory management? Adopting a centralized information system that is robust, stable and agile is critical to ensure your company’s successful transition to unified commerce. This IS must be “always-on” and meet security and compliance requirements, as well as offer a seamless integrated experience to your customers so you never miss a sale.
Summary
Equip Your IS to Meet the Challenges of Unified Commerce
A Centralized IS to Manage the Omnichannel Data Flow
Information systems can no longer afford to operate in silos. Though consumers still predominantly shop in physical stores, internet traffic and e-commerce transactions continue to grow exponentially. In this context, synchronizing product (logistics), financial (payments) and documentation (invoices, tickets) processes can pave the way for centralized and unified operations.
Centralizing Data…
How do you transform your information system to meet your company’s needs? To determine the best course of action, IT leaders need to consider many factors: the scope of the organization, the history of the information system, and an effective differentiation strategy. There are, however, best practices to follow to ensure a successful transition.
…with Client Information
How can a retail brand build reliable, omnichannel shopping journeys if its information system is unable to recognize customers across all channels? Whatever the identification key (e-mail, loyalty card, etc.), it is essential that the IS be able to recognize each customer individually and draw all the valuable data collected over time (purchase history, wishlists, targeting data, etc.) in their interaction with the brand.
…and Stock Information
How can you reliably serve a customer who has located a product via their mobile, reserved it online, and will pick it up in-store within hours? Having a centralized, accurate view of your inventory in real time is critical; both for the warehouse and at point-of-sale. Let’s take a closer look at the requirements needed to achieve better, more unified inventory management.
Omnichannel Scenarios are Getting More Sophisticated
Depending on the omnichannel scenarios that a retailer wants to make available to its customers, their IS will need to support different OMS features. As omnichannel commerce becomes more sophisticated, product and payment flows can be combined in multiple ways, in ever more complex paths. Despite this, a retailer’s IT architecture should remain clearly formulated to avoid perplexity.
Selecting Suitable Application Software in Sales Terminals
Choosing suitable front-end and back-office sales applications is key to improving the productivity of sales associates, particularly in the retail industry, where staff turnover is high and training time is often scarce. To offer a streamlined shopping journey and frictionless customer experience, the chosen application software must be centralized and able to handle omnichannel processes from start to finish.