The Ideal Digital Transformation Strategy for Indian Retailers?

There is no one fit all solution that is ideal for all Indian retailers alike. The best and ideal digital transformation strategies for businesses are unique to their goals and objectives. Digital transformation is about automation, and the best utility of automation is to build transparency in business processes that builds trust between the business and the customers.  

Standardized automation that increases reliability must be adopted. The digital transformation must be cost-effective to achieve the desired result. Businesses must spend time where their customers spend time and find ways to establish a connection.   

Where Does the Digital Transformation Journey Begin for Retail? 

Digital transformation for retail does not begin and end with a specific function, like a shopping cart website. In reality, organizations must make significant changes to their operations, supply chains, inventory management, and customer relationship processes. Despite these challenges, several retailers have embraced the changing landscape and made progress in digital projects, using AI, augmented reality (AR), and IoT to transform their businesses and attract new customers.  

The pace of digitalization, combined with changing consumer behavior, is significantly impacting retail sales worldwide. As a result, retailers who want to move forward in the simulation game need to rethink their strategies and keep an eye on the changing needs of consumers. Likewise, consumer goods companies need to understand the opportunities and challenges that this confrontation brings.    

If you need to be convinced that digital transformation is fundamental, look at the evolution of retail. Since the retail apocalypse began more than a decade ago, the need for digitization, digitalization, cost savings, and automation has been high on retailers’ agendas. However, apart from cost savings and automation efforts, we have also seen that a digital transformation strategy can track the journey's stages and other needs to improve the shopping experience and empower retailers to reinvent themselves.   

Are Retailers Digitally Disconnected from Their Customers and Workforce At Large? 

Digital transformation occurs as companies of all sizes struggle to create value for their customers through new technologies that are changing nature around the world. What began as a new way of interacting with customers via the Internet and mobile devices has become a full-fledged business mission to become more robust and more efficient by constructing personalized customer experiences based on data and intelligence.  

For retailers to be successful in the future, organizations must adopt and apply a corporate culture that accepts change. Unfortunately, given that 60 percent of professionals do not feel able to change the corporate culture, immersion in a digital learning environment has significant benefits if it helps them upgrade their skills over the years, climb the ladder, and become digitally savvy employees.    

A deep understanding of the customers, including the customers who are with you today, the customers you want to be tomorrow, and how megatrends will affect them. Employees who understand and embrace North Star, including customer insights and megatrends, will work toward the same goals. The ultimate goal is to connect the desires of your employees with the North Star and your customers.   

How Digital Transformation Can Make Organizations More Competitive and Transform the In-store Experience  

The new, digitally aware customer, consumer habits have been altered by digital technology. Thanks to mobile devices, apps, machine learning, automation, and other technologies, customers can get what they want almost precisely when they need it. 

Because of these new digital technologies, customer expectations have shifted, resulting in a new breed of modern buyers. Consumers today are always connected, app-native, and aware of what technology can do for them. 

Customers frequently rate organizations based on their digital customer experience first because of the opportunities that arise from modern technology. 

To accommodate the new, modern-day buyer, your business needs to think digital-first, too.   

Role of Emerging Technologies and How Can They Be Utilized

This discussion will focus on various aspects of Big Data, IoT, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence and discuss how integrating these technologies can make a significant difference in retail by promoting the implementation of generalized analytical technologies combined with a comprehensive risk management approach.  

The vision is realized through the growth of convergent technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/ VR ), advances in connectivity (5G ), geo-location (IoT devices and sensors ), distributed ledger technology (blockchain), and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI / ML ). Together, IoT and AI are the key technologies driving the next wave of digital transformation. We argue that this convergence will drive the development of such autonomous business models, which coincide with the digital transformation of industrial enterprises.    

Life-changing technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence change the way businesses operate. The IoT helps connect devices and sensors. The combination of IoT and Blockchain has proven to be a time- and cost-saving approach, especially when generating large amounts of data.   

Large amounts of data to analyze advanced deep learning techniques (ADL) can help retailers make informed decisions. Blockchain-enabled systems for the Internet of Things (IoT) can be optimized through an in-depth learning approach. A small percentage of retailers already use IoT for intelligent manufacturing.    

Blockchain technology can be used to authenticate IoT network participants to increase trust and manage the identity of IoT devices. In addition, blockchain technology helps standardize data sets and harmonize digital platforms so that IoT data is accessible to multiple parties. 

In summary, blockchain technology improves data management for IoT devices due to its transparency, trustworthiness, truthfulness, immutability, security, and privacy.