RL - Retail

axway.com 4 There was a time when the omnichannel experience that this retailer is able to provide was a distinct competitive advantage. Three years later, it's an absolute necessity for continued market survival — but it's only one piece of the puzzle. It still falls short of what it means to provide cutting-edge value. According to a report from the Deloitte Center for the Edge titled The Retail Transformation: "Technological advances and public policy liberalization are contributing to new flows of information, knowledge, and resources. As a result, retailers face new pressures: • Lowered barriers to market entry are bringing in many new small players and fragmenting the retail landscape. • Online marketplaces are transcending geographic proximity and expanding market demand for highly specific offerings. • Technologies such as on-demand fulfillment are changing how and where retailers hold inventory. • New retail models are arising out of new technologies and new ways to connect with consumers. Amid all this change, the retail value chain is unbundling, and even remapping. To compete effectively, traditional retailers should reimagine how they create and capture value, thinking past omnichannel positioning to examine, and find the best uses for, their assets." Thinking beyond omnichannel According to IDC, in the age of the customer experience, omnichannel alone is no longer enough. A recent survey* of 600 executives shows that four out of 10 omnichannel systems fail to provide a unified, real-time view of the customer experience. Today, only 14 percent of those polled consider omnichannel to be a key differentiator that delivers a business advantage. Conversely, 22 percent consider an omnichannel strategy to be a necessary cost of doing business. And although the omnichannel concept is most popular in the retail space, only 44 percent of outlets have implemented it. 39 percent are not even planning to invest in omnichannel. What's going on? For most retailers, the benefits and perceived ROI associated with implementing an omnichannel strategy are not enough to overcome the challenges, which involve: • Ensuring secure data movement across channel networks • Using real-time customer data feeds to update customer profiles • Integrating omnichannel data into legacy management systems In light of this, the future of omnichannel is uncertain. Stores just don't see it as a differentiating factor in the market anymore. In fact, by 2020, two-thirds (63 percent) will consider omnichannel as little more than operational "business as usual," or still a work in progress, or an initiative that is showing merely incremental operational improvement. It's not viewed as a vehicle for greater business value or product and service innovation. For that, retailers are looking at more holistic and customer-centric models that are "fit for purpose" and structured around more existential concepts that include customer experience (CX) networks, crafting a single customer view, and guiding shoppers along a unique customer journey. The idea behind an omnichannel approach is to unify the customer experience, but only insofar as maintaining seamless customer-retailer interactions across many devices. The importance of this hasn't changed. But progressive companies have recognized a powerful opportunity embedded in this digital technology. They've discovered that, by thinking beyond omnichannel, they can tap into their entire digital ecosystem — employees, suppliers, partners, external data sources and related services — to totally change the game in their competitive favor. B2B, B2C; it doesn't matter. * IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Axway, The Role of Customer Experience Networks in Delivering Value-Based Digital Transformation, May 2017

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