While the customer has always been right, these days they’re king. In a market that’s being relentlessly squeezed by discounters and challenged by the continued and expanding growth of omni-channel retail – whether it is click and collect, next day delivery, quick and easy mobile purchasing or a much improved in-store shopping experience – retail remains one of the toughest sectors to be in.
In order to meet the demands of a challenging sector such as retail, it is essential that an organisation’s software solutions can cope with complex round-the-clock data coming from multiple locations and sources. As the business case for facilitating omni-channel retail enhances in appeal, many retailers have not executed this due to technology issues. Yet with omni-channel customers displaying a higher level of loyalty to a brand and typically out-spending single-channel shoppers by over 20%[1], retailers are missing a trick.
In order to meet these rapidly evolving customer expectations, retailers therefore need to look at moving beyond customer-facing ‘front office’ operations and creating competent ‘back office’ systems, too. And while systems like human resources and finance may have traditionally been confined to the back office, retailers are starting to tune into to the fact that the information they hold can also increasingly help to optimise their customer facing and front-office operations. After all, every day these departments capture huge amounts of data that can deliver insight to the rest of the business, helping enhance decision-making to; improve productivity in store, improve the understanding of customer behaviours; and provide the data needed to predict future trends.
Until recently though, the benefits of linking back and front office systems were not recognised. CRM was aligned to the front office area of sales, service and marketing, while the finance department used an accounts system, and customer services used a service management package in the depths of the back office. But keeping these processes separate meant retailers were missing out on the bigger picture. Consolidating data sources means information from all parts of the business, including sales trading figures, can be combined quickly, reliably and comprehensively into a unified view. Staff productivity can also be measured and human resources planned and deployed to allow for effective workforce optimisation for example, knowing how many staff are needed in each store in the most cost effective way. It can also help retailers identify, investigate and resolve any issues, discrepancies or shortfalls more quickly and accurately, which can only benefit front-of-store departments, too.
So what should be the next steps for retailers planning their future technology focus and strategy? Advanced Business Solutions has identified seven pillars of technology influence that embody the latest evolution for retail business systems: –
- Mobile – connecting staff across all locations, providing access to systems on the move and extending the reach of your business
- Analytics – offering an accessible, real-time view of business performance and financial information which can be broken down by geographical area or individual store for example
- Automation – driving efficiency and accuracy from internal processes and allowing for the easy deployment of new procedures across a disparate business
- Integration – unifying data sources to offer a single version of the truth across multiple stores and purchasing points, the supply chain, finance, HR and payroll, allowing for effective trading and workforce optimisation and creating better relationships with suppliers and customers
- Security – protecting valuable customer and staff data, processes and resources against breach and misuse
- Cloud – offering a secure platform for flexible, accessible and collaborative working which can be quickly deployed across multiple locations and relied upon in the event of critical system failure or a disaster occurring
- Social – building engagement across internal and external teams whilst enhancing customer and supplier relationships
To sum up, if the data held within back office departments isn’t harnessed and shared with the rest of the company, organisations are putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage. Because, the more you know about what’s going on in every department, from shipping to shopping, the better position you will be in to serve its customers.
Simon Fowler, Managing Director
Advanced Business Solutions
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[1] http://www.omnichannelretailingsummit.co.uk/post-event-2015/
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