SPECIAL FOCUS TECHNOLOGY Streamline to
Victorio Pellicano, CEO of Verenia, and David Atherton, Sales Director at NoBlue, discuss new software to simplify and, in
Today, the internet allows for an easy and seamless shopping experience, meaning that customers are now starting their journeys online as opposed to in store.
To remain competitive in such an ecommerce-driven marketplace, retailers must have the right technology ecosystem in place; one that can reach customers across digital and non-digital platforms. What’s more, customers now want instant gratification during their shopping experience and expect the same level of immediacy they have become accustomed to from shopping on their phones and computers.
As a result, retailers are turning their focus to software for an answer to their problems, looking for a solution which enables them to offer truly seamless interactions between buyers and sellers with instant access to real-time, accurate information.
Following the formal launch of its marketplace AmazonSupply in 2012 (now Amazon Business), Amazon has positioned itself as the go-to retailer not just in the B2C industry, but in the B2B market too. In previous years, trends have also indicated that customer experience preferences are mirroring the service Amazon provides.
For many retail businesses, Amazon has emerged as a real threat, and one industry which is feeling the repercussions of this is the flooring industry. Due to logistical challenges, such as the heavy and hard to install nature of flooring and the difficulty of returning the product, flooring retailers have the ability to rise above Amazon. Whilst Amazon may be perceived
24 | Tomorrow’s Retail Floors
as a key competitor, it is also the perfect example of what can be achieved with the right software technology network in place. In light of this, retailers can no longer ignore the benefits of digital transformation.
For sellers, making the transition from back-end legacy systems to a cloud-accelerated platform is no walk in the park. Over the years, businesses have pieced together a patchwork of applications to run their operations. From accounting to order fulfilment and even sales and marketing, a venerable hairball of applications exists across millions of businesses – which lacks many of the capabilities that businesses need, such as access to real-time information. As a result, companies try to grow by adding even more systems or applications for specific purposes - which often aren’t integrated with each other – in an attempt to automate certain business processes.
This level of complexity, full of manual tasks and bottlenecks, increases risks and errors and can hurt the customer experience - it hinders growth, and, in some cases, can result in the death of a once vibrant company.
Running complex business processes across areas such as financial management, revenue management, fixed assets, procurement, order management, billing, inventory management, services delivery and more is just not possible using disparate systems and applications. For example, a simple general ledger solution patched together with a web
www.tomorrowsretailfloors.com
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