RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
Time For Change A
s retail is changing, more now than ever before, Alan Morris advocates a new way for footwear retailers to review how they plan their technology, to reflect and remain on the upside of market change. As an industry, retail is driven more by change than by any other
factor. Retailers no longer introduce new lines solely to reflect the four main seasons. Shoe and boot merchandising now takes place on a continuous basis, to keep the offer fresh, relevant and customer-centric. So how should a retailer’s IT strategy accommodate and serve that constantly evolving market? Retailers in all sectors customarily manage their IT investments and
infrastructure to reflect a 5-year business plan. To ensure we providers tailor our solutions to the challenges that retailers face today and will face tomorrow, I put myself in the position of a retail IT director. How would I decide what to include in an IT strategy today? Well, I would certainly try to build one that contained more than incremental technical upgrade and investment. Any retail IT strategy needs to support the business’s drive to improve
footfall and conversion rate. This is even more challenging in these recessionary times. Footwear remains a largely discretionary purchase, especially in the fashion and luxury markets although, as pockets of buoyant sales reveal, people with (relatively) secure jobs are continuing to spend. Nevertheless, some good retailers are struggling and others, less sound, have been able to mask their poor performance. As with consumers, few retailers have escaped the recession without some exposure to vulnerability, somewhere.
Now is the time to change how you approach your IT strategy, because retail is changing, says Alan Morris of Retail Assist
So, looking forward to 2015, I know that my strategy must increase the
closeness of IT to the business. I believe IT should take responsibility for looking at customers and their IT usage. They should ask themselves what the company stands for, what makes them exceptional and then map that into trends and IT practices that bring consumer and retailer closer. The most obvious element – now a given - is to make sure the internet is
an integrated point-of-service. But, what else would I look at, say, taking the example of a shoe and boot retailer catering for women in their 20s and 30s? Who could I trust to predict the changes that will happen in my sector? I’d look more widely at society, including the media, and not confine myself to consulting ‘experts’ in the fields of technology and retail. Whilst a lot of IT directors set their strategies to reflect the predictions of technology visionaries, I believe they’d be better served by focusing on how their customer profile will change. Your current customer base will grow out of your mix, your product
profile. To forecast how people will buy tomorrow, you need to look not just at today’s technologies, but turn your attention to today’s 15 year olds who will be your target market in 5 years’ time. Make your judgments based upon the technologies that are embedded in the lives of the individuals who will be tomorrow’s customers. Consider the ways in which today’s teenagers communicate via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; and consider the devices that they live by to obtain information and gratify their retail needs and desires, ie. mobile and intelligent ‘phones. Footwear retailers know they must be customer-centric to build loyalty
and encourage repeat purchasing but do they realise they need total visibility across the selling chain? You need to understand every customer interaction and, using the CRM functions that exist within today’s retail systems, capture and record activity across each channel. When someone buys shoes online, for example, this transaction needs to cascade through your business, alerting every part of it and added this record to other information available on that customer and their previous interactions.
40 • FOOTWEAR TODAY
• AUGUST 2010
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