| | July 20156Allow An Omni-Channel Transformation To Blossom IDC Retail Insights assists retail businesses and IT leaders, as well as the suppliers who serve them, in making effective technology decisions by providing accurate, timely and insightful fact-based research and consulting services.By Leslie Hand, Research Director, IDC Retail InsightsRetail is in the midst of a transformation unlike any seen since the 1970's when chain retail first got serious about leveraging technology to electronically tabulate sales, automate reporting, and perform sales analysis and business and product planning. The former technological shift was driven both by consumer needs (suburban sprawl) and the new availability of technologies that addressed the challenges that hampered retail growth. Today's retail shift is driven primarily by three overriding factors - changing consumer behavior, consumer technologies and globalization. One could argue that these factors have forced retailers into a position where they simply must leverage the latest and greatest technologies just to stay in the game, no less keep and win new customers with attractive brands armed to satisfy the customer.This new customer is omni-channel, and follows a path to purchase that is more complex than before, potentially shopping online, mobile, catalog and store channels in parallel. The consumer's purchase decision is influenced by a variety of digital technologies - mobile information sources, social networks, email, text messages, mobile enabled sales associates and digital signs and billboards. The consumer experience of a brand can all be boiled down to three primary activities: buying, receiving and using goods. All of the marketing, merchandising, selling and supply fulfillment processes that a retailer shepherds all culminate in these three touch points. From a retail perspective every step along the way from product conception through the post sale experience is most effective and efficient when it operates as an integrated orchestrated part of the whole. Commerce and fulfillment are two of the biggest technology investment areas for retailers today. Establishing programs and capabilities that enable customers to interact in as many potential moments of influence as possible is the first omni-channel order of business, of course calibrated for each business. In 2014 we will see retailers continue to stretch the boundaries of their interactions with consumers, adding capabilities such as location based marketing, integrated mobile POS and virtual Leslie Handopinionin my
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