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Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers cannot depend entirely on historical data to guide them through the next phase of buying and selling as the rise of e-commerce shopping and delivery has prioritized consumers’ desire for efficiency and convenience
FREMONT, CA: Retailers must understand their goals and needs for a successful digital transformation journey. Comprehending and outlining how intelligent technologies are expected and desired to support and strengthen business processes is crucial before implementing them. Today, with the retail environment transforming, technology is the main factor to keeping up with competition and keeping customers happy.
SAP’s recent study, conducted by leading industry analyst Forrester Consulting, emphasizes on retailers’ desire to not only undergo digital transformation but also adopt technologies that will allow them to keep up with market innovation, providing a competitive edge.
Fulfilling Customer Experience
Retailers work to provide a matching personalized one-to-one connection formed between shoppers and products in the brick-and-mortar retail experience, by focusing on digital initiatives including customer-centricity, small retail technology, and personalized service.
Retailers mostly aim at using big data and predictive analytics to make decisions on product assortment. With the help of this data, they can serve their customers’ needs by connecting location and market data with transaction history and loyalty status data and then utilizing those insights to provide intelligent recommendations.
Retailers have several in-store technologies in place, with many planning to introduce additional tech in the future. To make sure that the technology is implemented correctly, companies search for platforms to address the challenges. Ninety percent of organizations turn to a platform that allows scalable, intelligent technology deployment, unifies data collected and used by smart technology for business processes, and embeds technologies in business solution software. Users expect these platforms will provide them with more accessible and more streamlined information sharing to address today’s customer needs and provide the best quality shopping experience.
Digital Transformation
To assess the transformation of the retail industry, SAP assigned a study in January 2019 to examine enterprise adoption of intelligent technologies to support the digital transformation journey. The research studied companies that were actively undergoing digital transformation and had already implemented at least two innovation technologies like machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and augmented or virtual reality (AR or VR). According to the results, 93 percent of companies believe that intelligent, innovative technologies are foundations to digital transformation.
Redesigning Retail Experience
The path-to-purchase has transformed over the years, and customers no longer need to plan trips to the malls guided by employees in their search for products. Instead, they can browse through products at the comfort of their space and purchase with just a click of a button. Retailers can accomplish this need for instant gratification, answers, and options through implementing digital technology.
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