How Technology is Transforming the Retail Game?

Share your views on the retail industry landscape.

Technology advancementshave led to colossal competition amongst the retailers. Be it inthe adoption of varying business models or rate of technology implementation, retail industry has experienced incredible changes in the past few years.

Evidently, this is an outcome of today’s smart consumers demanding a unified shopping experience and possess elite notion of level ofservice quality which sometimes are difficult to meet even for the bests in the field. Omnipresence of retail setupacross the brick and mortar, the digital landscape and beyond has become a mandate. Merchants are no longer considered to be the overlying reason for making purchase decisions. The tech-led makeover of retail landscape is putting variety of purchase options on consumer’s finger tips making consumers capable of driving their purchase decisionsfrom the place of their comfort and convenience. Also, in the  age of social media, the ‘word of mouth’ strategy via various communities have become an   important influencing factor in the buyer’s journey.

How has technology helped in reclassifying retail sector?

Fusion of technology and retail has delivered newer opportunities both for buyers and sellers Technology plays a critical role in the functioning of complex retail activities and is being increasingly leveraged to unveil unique dimensions of outstanding customer service. Virtual shopping assistants, in-store robots, Artificial Intelligence-fuelled suggestion motors, bot-managed billing counters, visual marketing are some of the new entities that have put the retail landscape in flux. Though majority of these are not a ground reality today but the fact that these are in the pipeline has impacted the retails’ planning and strategies surely. Upsurge in the usage of digital wallets, rise of consumer analytics derivations etc. are just upping the ante further.

Explain the aspects of retail that are being redefined by technology.

Retail is gamut of processes and procedures that has been fast-tracked and automated with the help of technology delivered by Sales enablement partners. Some of them are:

• Salesforce automation: Salesforce automation addresses all the existing as well as possible business challenges while implementing a feet-on-street strategy. It can be a holistic solution for planning and managing the field force program, offering end-to-end visibility to all the stakeholders in the sales ecosystem. It may address pertinent sales process issues such as inaccurate process of capturing sales data, fraudulent reporting, limited stock visibility, absence of structured communication platform, limited first-hand market insights and more.
• Training: Training through mobile apps is an apt case of the technology-empowered platform for ‘feet-on-street’ (FOS). Applications that enable real-time reference material for salesperson at remote location are key enabler in retail space. The applications can be a central repository for the salesforce and may provide window to the performance review, assessment processes etc for upskilling the FOS on go. 
• Logistical advancements:Advancements such as QR Codes, Virtual Reality, drones, digital wallets etc. are being leveraged to enhance customer experiences. Riding high on the emerging technologies these logistical advancements are only going to expand and permeate the retail sector deep.
• Predictive analytics:data analytics has been on boom with Predictive analytics playing a key role in the retail sector. Not only it provides insight into the customer’s journey and their buying patterns but also provide enough information to the brands for finalising their business strategies. It helps them to make right decisions and creating impactful touch points at every step of the customer journey.

Innovative strategies leveraging latest technologyhelp render a 'wow experience' for the customers. With the changing times, it is no longer sufficient to just rely on competitive pricing, in factit is also equally important for the retailers to adapt to the newer and smarter ways of doing business.  It is pertinent for brands to embrace technology to create an effective and empowered customer-centric experience and thus stay ahead of the curve.