Retail Technology Is Fast Evolving Toward Unified Commerce...If You Aren't You Might As Well Close Your Doors

For retailers who are not well into their transformation to a ubiquitous, real-time retail customer journey, the key to survival is to redouble their efforts before the competition puts them out of business. The phrase "retail apocalypse" is real...and in order for YOUR company not to fall victim you need to heed the advise in this article.  To survive and thrive, retail chains MUST embrace merging cloud, IT, and marketing to improve profitability.  

Retail technology has experienced an explosion in new capabilities that bring unlimited opportunities. Think back 20 years and retail IT was much less complex from a shear volume of applications and technology options. Today, retail IT must deal with many new factors and issues: social, mobile, cloud, and big data. Oh and by the way, manage all this information and platforms in a secure environment!

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The key to managing this complex IT environment is to develop a strategic plan and technology roadmap and then execute according to the plan. Here are a few of the key issues that your strategic plan should address:

What are your business requirements today and how will then change in the next 5-10 years to accommodate changing needs and growth?

• How do you integrate disparate systems into a single, unified commerce platform?
• For new applications should you buy or build?
• What aspects of IT should be outsourced?
• What systems should you move to the cloud?
• How do you quickly adapt to the new mobile paradigm?
• How do you prioritize all the company’s IT projects?

These are often difficult decisions that have a significant impact on the company’s operational effectiveness, financial success and the customer experience. The challenge is to make the right choices and trade-offs that will position the company for success.

Blending the physical and digital worlds into a unified omni-channel plan for IT, POS, and CRM will enable your company to better grow and prosper in the new paradigm of technology driven retail.  With a technology driven unified commerce strategy you will be better able to deliver a personalized, seamless experience wherever, whenever and however your customer shops.

Retailers today often struggle with leveraging technology to create the retail experience of the future, including the shift to cloud-based solutions, the rapid rise of mobile, increasing bandwidth requirements and the prevalence of legacy systems.  Customers expect a consistent, personalized and satisfying shopping experience wherever, whenever and however they shop and retailers need a robust, fast, reliable, resilient network infrastructure to enable this real-time retail experience.  Delivering on that experience requires a different approach that sets the stage for unified commerce.

For help navigating your journey to becoming a "Future Store" and leading member of the unified commerce movement...all you need to do is ask at the following link.  It's as easy as1, 2, 3.

Unified Commerce Solutions