TRENDING
Boosting productivity and engagement:
As many bricks and mortar stores are closing,
and as a result, are laying off thousands
of employees, it is important to remember
that great, knowledgeable and loyal staff
are worth their weight in gold. It can be
the difference between profitability and
failure. It is important to harness compelling
data to track employees and monitor their
performance to identify a problem before it
influences employee performance and the
customer experience.
to attract new customers and win the loyalty
of existing customers,” added Coetzer.
South African bricks and mortar retailers seem
to be aware of this trend, as the most recent
PWC Total Retail Survey 2017 canvassed over
24,471 respondents across six continents and
put South Africans on par with US mobile
and online spending habits. The survey
further revealed that 38% of South Africans,
compared to 45% of Americans start their
product searches online, while 32% of South
Africans and Americans buy products at least
monthly via a smartphone.
“In the face of this trend, there are some
traditional bricks and mortar stores that are
really pushing the envelope in customer
experiences and have successfully adapted
to shifting consumer preferences using
e-commerce capabilities, mobile applications
and the Internet of Things (IoT),” said
Coetzer. “In the past, retailing was a relatively
simple business; you selected the right
product range, bought the selected products
at the lowest possible price and at the right
quantities, merchandised the products in your
stores, managed stock availability with supply
chain efficiency and marketing efforts, and at
the end of the retail cycle you exited old lines
with minimal cannibalisation.”
Today, however retailers are faced with
different challenges. Retailers need an
integrated technology platform to streamline
processes, such as stock count, temperature
or lighting regulation and to intimately know
and predict consumer behaviour with data
analysis to push personalised promotions
through mobile.
Leon Coetzer, CEO of redPanda Software
Coetzer lists a few areas where South African
retailers are beginning to leverage the many
promises of IoT and big data:
Enhancing customer experience, building
loyalty: Retailers have identified customer
experience as the key to building brand
loyalty and winning share of wallet. To
harness customer data, turning it into
accurate customer profiles and using it to
communicate more targeted promotions
and discounts, retailers need one integrated
data platform so they don’t have 20 versions
of the truth.
“The bricks and mortar retail industry is
probably the most cut-throat industry when
it comes to engaging consumer spending,
but a decade ago Amazon had successfully
figured out how to personalise a customer’s
experience by tracking spending behaviour,”
said Coetzer. Monitoring inventory, reducing waste:
While the customer is receiving personalised
offers sent directly to them, one of the biggest
concerns for retailers is tracking inventory
to keep stock levels up at a cost-efficient
level and in real time. By implementing an
ecosystem of connected devices harnessing
IoT that constantly monitors stock levels and
inventory, today’s retailers can eliminate
waste and boost revenues.
“If you can pull this principle through to a
large grocery chain, you have a profitable
retailer offering their customers an intimate
experience. The PWC survey also found that
more than a third of retailers are struggling
to implement a customer experience
strategy, with a further third indicating
that they are aware of the importance of
improving their strategy.” Optimising asset management: Through
a well-implemented and consolidated
network of connected devices, companies
can better manage and optimise their key
assets and equipment. For example, smart
sensors can begin to pick up key trends and
allow retailers to become proactive and pre-
empt possible system or hardware failures
or glitches.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
“Retail stores 100 years ago knew their
regular customers, down to their clothing
sizes and family members,” explained
Coetzer. “However, the massive scale of
today’s retailers makes it impossible to
know your customers. Being able to now
analyse the data, IoT has the capacity to
bring these valuable customer insights
to bricks and mortar companies. It is
finally replicating at least some part of
the personalised experience of a century
ago. Now it’s up to retail companies to
implement a simple and customisable
integrated technology platform to leapfrog
business forward.” n
“
BEING ABLE TO
NOW ANALYSE
THE DATA,
IOT HAS THE
CAPACITY TO
BRING THESE
VALUABLE
CUSTOMER
INSIGHTS
TO BRICKS
AND MORTAR
COMPANIES.
www.intelligentcio.com