Retail Digital Transformation: VDC Research

Key Considerations for Retail Technology Decision Makers 

With the continued rapid convergence of traditional commerce with e-commerce, the adoption of digital and mobile technologies to improve retail services and optimize the customer experience is directly translating into improved loyalty, increased share of wallet and greater profitability. Today’s customer desires convenience and expects a seamless experience across all channels. This is forcing retailers to re-think and re-calibrate their operations across many dimensions, melding the digital with the physical domains. Improvements to digital technologies will enable retailers to more effectively respond to this new normal, driving decision making in unprecedented ways. 

In-store digitization is moving beyond the experimentation phase as retail executives and IT teams prove the value of the digital store. Successful retailers are combining mPOS and clienteling to create a rich in-store experience that touches multiple parts of the customer life cycle to create a more compelling and differentiating customer experience. Moreover, digitizing the entire supply chain will unlock new opportunities like making stock availability more transparent to customers and enabling more flexible multichannel integration and fulfillment. 

However, these investments are placing increasing strain on already resource limited retail IT and operations departments. In this paper we will explore several digital transformation investment opportunities, the benefits realized by retailers and the technology investment and support best practices required to maximize ROI.