"Now is the time to change how you approach your ITstrategy, because retail is changing" says Alan Morris, Managing Director of Retail Assist


As retail is changing, more now than ever before, AlanMorris advocates a new way for retailers to review how they plan theirtechnology, to reflect and remain on the upside of market change.


As an industry, we are driven more by change than by anyother factor. Retailers no longer introduce new lines solely to reflect thefour main seasons. Merchandising now takes place on a continuous basis, to keepthe offer fresh, relevant and customer-centric. So how should a retailers ITstrategy accommodate and serve that constantly evolving market?


Retailers customarily manage their IT investments andinfrastructure to reflect a 5-year business plan. To ensure we providers tailorour solutions to the challenges that retailers face today and will facetomorrow, I put myself in the shoes of retail IT director. How would I decidewhat to include in an IT strategy today? Well, I would certainly try to buildone that contained more than incremental technical upgrade and investment.


Any retail IT strategy needs to support the business's driveto improve footfall and conversion rate. This is even more challenging in theserecessionary times although, as pockets of buoyant sales reveal, people with(relatively) secure jobs are continuing to spend. Nevertheless, some goodretailers are struggling and others, less sound, have been able to mask theirpoor performance. As with consumers, few retailers have escaped the recessionwithout some exposure to vulnerability, somewhere.


So, looking forward to 2015, I know that my strategy mustincrease the closeness of IT to the business. I believe IT should takeresponsibility for looking at customers and their IT usage. They should askthemselves what the company stands for, what makes them exceptional and thenmap that into trends and IT practices that bring consumer and retailer closer.


The most obvious element-now a given-is to make sure theinternet is an integrated point-of-service. But, what else would I look at,say, taking the example of a fashion retailer catering for women in their 20sand 30s? Who could I trust to predict the changes that will happen in mysector? I'd look more widely at society, including the media, and not confinemyself to consulting 'experts' in the fields of technology and retail. Whilsta lot of IT directors set their strategies to reflect the predictions oftechnology visionaries, I believe theyd be better served by focusing on howtheir customer profile will change.


Your current customer base will grow out of your mix, yourproduct profile. To forecast how people will buy tomorrow, look not just attoday's technologies but turn your attention to today's 15 year olds who willbe your target market in 5 year's time. Make your judgments based upon thetechnologies that are embedded in the lives of the individuals who will betomorrow's customers. Consider the ways in which today's teenagers communicatevia social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; and consider thedevices that they live by to obtain information and gratify their retail needsand desires, ie. mobile and intelligent phones.


Retailers know they must be customer-centric but do they realisethey need total visibility across their selling chain? You need to understandevery customer interaction and, using the CRM functions that exist withintodays retail systems, capture and record activity across each channel. Whensomeone buys online, for example, this needs to cascade through your business,alerting every part of it and added this record to other information availableon that customer and their previous interactions.


Todays hot topics are support for the iPhone and theBlackberry. Looking forward, mobile and 'on the go' computing will remainstrong. Online purchasing will expand from largely home-based to taking placeanywhere and at any time. Retail IT strategy for the coming years needs tocater for this in its systems design and management.


Still in the shoes of that retail IT director, I'd ponderhow to integrate these new devices into my hardware 'pool'. With potentialcustomers walking round with significant processing power in their pockets orhandbags, I'd be a fool not to use it to deliver truly individual service thatcould differentiate me from my competitors.

Even those retailers considering themselves to be technologypioneers need to know where they will go next. When it comes to systems upgradeor acquisition, they should ask tough questions of their solutions providers.They should expect 'roadmaps' that chart the release of new functions andsupport for any new technologies, demonstrating what they will do for a retailbusiness at a practical level. It is only then that the crystal ball marked'retail in 2015' can be looked into by all parties, and a strategy defined thatwill accurately reflect the future intersection of technology and customer inthe retail sector.


Alan Morris is co-founder and managing director of retail-onlyIT services and solutions provider, Retail Assist.


Here I refers to the author of the article


Picturecourtesy: http://www.coworkforce.com/sjh/RetailSales.jpg