Judith Magyar, Director of Strategic Content Development at SAP, discusses five major ways to improve retail experiences.
Technology and Retail Experiences
This year’s National Retail Federation Big Show brought together over 37,000 retail professionals and vendors from almost 100 countries to explore retail experiences. Retailers attend to understand the trends and get the latest on the best technology. With technology that enables instant engagement and changing consumer values and behaviour, retail companies are experiencing relentless disruption. Dealing with that disruption is what drives retailers and tech companies to attend the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual industry event.
Retail experts agree that in 2019, the market will be defined by emerging technologies that change the way consumers interact with their favourite brands and a shift in consumer behaviour.
SAP and Current Trends
SAP has created five end-to-end retail scenarios to illustrate ways to improve retail experiences based on current trends:
- Experiences You Can Trust: No more wrong orders, shipping nightmares, and chaotic customer data. Let SAP help you rethink your business model and apply emerging technologies like blockchain, machine learning, and robotics for seamless customer engagement
- Best-Run Beauty and the Augmented Reality Experience: Being a best-run business will help you fix those problems. It will also help you monitor costs, analyse your data, and make better decisions. Learn how SAP’s end-to-end story will bring more value to your business
- Experience the Connected Store: Customers are willing to pay more for positive retail experiences. SAP has re-engineered applications so you can seamlessly respond to customer need both online or in store. SAP C/4HANA, SAP Leonardo, and KeyTree can help you master inventory challenges with the help of an augmented store assistant.
- Experience SAP and Google Cloud: Your assortment plan needs to be in good shape if you want to maximize sales and profit for specific periods of time. Find out how you can leverage the Google Shopping Platform and your warehouse robots to get your initial purchase quantities right to ensure a steady allocation process over time.
- Experience the SAP Solution Zone: Intelligent enterprises effectively use their data assets to achieve desired outcomes faster and with less risk. To become intelligent, your enterprise needs an intelligent suite to run processes efficiently, intelligent technologies to create new revenue streams and better experiences, and a digital platform to turn your data into gold. In the SAP Solution Zone you can see how intelligent enterprises run in several key areas, including merchandising, supply chain, in store, the customer experience, mid-market commerce, innovations, and the SAP fashion labs.
The Takeaway for Retailers
The shift in brands being more of a culture than a product has been building steadily as millennial consumers are buying based on corporate responsibility and social impact. This means retailers must respond to demands for more ethical business practices, more sustainable supply chains, and less negative environmental impact. At the same time, they must provide a seamless, expedited, and engaging retail experiences that allows clients to interact with their brand in creative ways.