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Retailers look upon cloud technology to enhance their sales and provide the best in CRM by securing the customers' data and information.
FREMONT, CA: With the advent of cloud computing technology, the idea of incorporating retail on the cloud has shown great success. Similar to the banking and manufacturing industry, the retail market is also recognizing this transformative change due to cloud computing in today's digital ecosystem. The retail industry is widely adopting cloud computing technologies worth $4 billion in 2011, which hiked to an estimated $15 billion the last year, according to a recent report. Cloud computing has eased and helped to improve the world's economy tremendously. With more firms realizing how cloud computing can reduce their costs and simplify their complex situation, the competition leveraging cloud is gradually increasing. Cloud technology is considered as a cost-effective, low-risk means of optimally offering information on products, customers, or the processes at any time of the day. This is also considered as a highly efficient way to process the data. However, the retailers are not aware of the opportunities and possibilities the cloud has to offer, and they also lack the knowledge about how to make a better transition to the cloud.
Store the non-critical applications on the cloud
There are innumerable ways in which commercial enterprises can take advantage of cloud technologies. Some of them include moving complete processes, IT services, and infrastructure, or simply storage space for data to the private or public cloud. When it is paired with the appropriate security concepts, it is an attractive option, especially for the non- core applications. The current application for customer relationship management (CRM), which is especially important for retailers, is now available only on the cloud.
Advantages of Cloud
The advantages of providing IT resources and programs vary for enterprises. Some of the advantages include booking flexibly, and the users do not have to be tied in for a long time. This offers adjustments at short notice to unforeseen peaks in demand, such as before public holidays or during the discount campaigns. It also helps the retailers to react quickly to the new upcoming trends. Retailers can avoid high capital expenditure while using the services from the cloud, as they only need to pay monthly operating costs for what they actually use. Along with this, the enterprises can transfer the risk associated with the cloud application technology to the provider by means of clearly defined service level agreements (SLAs). In short, retailers can focus on their core businesses by the help of cloud applications.
High CRM and Omni-channel Trade
The users can have access to any information related to customers worldwide with a single human touch, and give them better and possible advice. These were all possible when the retailers started moving to the cloud-based, cross-channel CRM software. Cloud technology forms the cornerstone for the entire digitized customer journey. The power and flexibility of cloud application technology can be used to enhance and improve customer experience, cut down on cost, and make the business processes more efficient.
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