Unlocking the Store of the Future

Hard as it is to believe, some of us remember the days before supermarkets and mega stores seemed to be the only shopping options.

If you grew up somewhere like I did, you were even lucky enough to buy your fruits and vegetables from a roadside produce stand.

Today, we have malls where it can take days just to window shop and hypermarkets where shoppers can buy everything — including the kitchen sink. We can even take convenient trips to cyberspace, day or night, where we browse through online stores and malls without leaving the comfort of our homes or hotel rooms. With all of this variety, it seems like there would be no new frontier for retailers to explore. But this is far from the truth.

For retailers, the future has always been an unpredictable mix of customer taste, changing fashion, store inventory and disconnected supply chains. With the arrival of the Internet and other technological and social advances and the collapse of trade boundaries, the daunting challenge for many retailers is how to cater to the specific, fast-changing tastes of local customers while fighting competition from every corner of the globe.

Next frontier
One thing is certain: To be successful, retailers must be flexible and agile, and that capability is all about an integrated supply chain. Conversely, nothing can kill flexibility like a lengthy and rigid supply chain.

The next frontier for retailers involves finding the fastest and most efficient way to transform traditional business models at the breakneck speed of market shifts. Successful retailers will continually find ways to differentiate their products and services from those of their competitors. Retailers have to provide a compelling experience to compete with proliferating buying channels, growing demand online, one-stop shopping alternatives and the ever-faster introduction of new products and services.

They must offer a more personal and focused venue with a shopping experience that combines the right products with a personalized level of service that goes beyond shoppers’ expectations and inspires them to come back for more.

For most retail operations, however, transitioning to a new business model can seem daunting – with separate warehouses and business processes to deliver goods and services to each channel, customer information dispersed throughout the company and the ever-present challenge of developing and maintaining an effective workforce.

It isn’t enough to know what your customers bought; rather, to effectively leverage that information you need to know what they are going to buy. A strong knowledge of past buying habits is the key that opens the door to understanding future demands, and that understanding will, in turn, drive merchandising decisions throughout the enterprise.

Retailers will find ways to enhance or expand the business processes that support intelligent demand planning and merchandising and provide a unique and distinctive shopping experience for their customers, from just the right merchandise to staff ready to assist exactly when needed.

Ultimately, these processes should help create a shopping environment that suits customers’ needs dynamically by leveraging technologies like RFID, mobile self-checkout and high-speed payment. All of these capabilities will be used to help customers find what they are looking for in their own timeframe.

Future-proof technology
With today’s savvy shoppers being inundated with product and shopping channel choices, retail growth and profitability will demand a deeper understanding of consumers, quantitative data to anticipate and fulfill their needs and insight to inspire them to return to the stores, whether bricks-and-mortar or virtual.

To achieve this superior real-time enterprise management, a scalable, reliable and “future-proof” technology platform is required. Retailers of the future must be able to implement emerging services, processes and technologies on their installed technology platform. Quick response, enabled by a platform designed for change, can help retailers define excellent experiences for customers that will rapidly translate into customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and increased sales.

With the right technology platform, retailers can develop their brand identity, increase market share and investment, differentiate their products and services and ensure sustainable growth. Innovative retailers with the technologies to provide them with the insight and ability to act quickly and decisively will be able to take advantage of inevitable and unforeseen opportunities as they arise.