Stanimira Koleva, Chief Operating Officer, AP & Japan at Software AG said: “Asia has always been a booming market for the retail industry. With the retail sales in Asia expected to grow fastest in the world over the next five years -amounting to over US$10 trillion, there lies ahead a bright future for local and international brands in the Asian markets*. To tap on such brilliant opportunity, retailers need to quickly up their game to cater to market demands.
“Providing an ultimate shopping experience coupled with excellent customer engagement, staying ahead in the competition and keeping the costs low are the biggest challenges the retailers mostly face. With smart store monitoring in place, retailers can gain real time insights on consumers’ shopping behaviour and store performance, which can help them create customer engagement strategies to increase customer retention and in turn, the revenue,” said Koleva.
According to a recent benchmark report from Retail Systems Research (RSR), underwritten by Software AG, retailers are keen to connect with consumers via smart devices and see an opportunity to offer new services based on consumer-driven data from IoT-enabled devices. They view store operations and customer engagement in stores as two of the top five departments that will benefit most from IoT (41% and 36%, respectively).
"With the role of the stores expanding from a historically transaction-only point to an omnichannel hub at the centre of all selling activities, maintaining efficient customer service has become tougher than ever before. To benefit from the stores’ shifting purpose and growing shopper expectations, retail managers must also be able to track, monitor, analyse and optimise all in-store activity in real-time. Smart Store Monitoring enables retailers in Asia to have the critical data capabilities they need to track and act on all of the sensors and data feeds in a store – from point of sale data to shelf sensors - rendering IoT a retail reality,” added Koleva.
RSR found that retailers view inventory accuracy (49%) and system-wide inventory visibility (40%) as two of the top three IoT opportunities. With the Digital Business Platform, sales managers and floor personnel can receive relevant details about a customer’s shopping history, store merchandise, inventory and product shipping information quickly.
However, respondents to RSR’s report cited three technology barriers for all IoT projects – combining disparate data sources together, determining the best response to specific data events or expectations, and dealing with a large volume of data from many different sources in real-time. To overcome these barriers, Software AG’s Digital Business platform features key technologies that enable Smart Store Monitoring, including:
Connectivity to all IoT-enabled data sources including in-store sensors and feeds, predictive models, in-store inventory management, point of service, external data or any other feeds.
Providing real-time actionable insight as to what is happening in-store in real time – visible by both store staff and head-office merchandisers.
Automatic adjustments of in-store promotional activity, including signage, based on real-time consumer response.
Ability to incorporate predictive models to initiate actions such as deploying additional staff or replenishing shelves at just the right moment.
In-memory data management and real-time analytics tools ensure that information is readily accessible and actionable.
Connectivity and process management tools ensure in-store processes can be managed, and automated where appropriate, to streamline omnichannel processes.
*PwC survey (PDF)
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