Retail


Data and composable commerce drive the future of retail


Casper Rasmussen, Global SVP of Technology at Valtech talks about the digitalisation of retail in the post-Covid world.


What role does digitalisation play in today’s retail landscape? Digital touches all parts of doing business today. It’s pivotal. Various digitalisation initiatives have taken shape over the last decade – like ‘buy online pickup in store’ or self-checkout. But the pace of digital advancement has accelerated significantly. Today, excelling in digitalisation is a matter of life or death for retailers. We’re now seeing more retailers needing to stay flexible,


competitive, and innovative, to meet the ever-rising expectations of their customers. Reality is, retailers create joined-up physical and digital retail experiences or them adopting new, and innovative, go- to-market approaches, like direct-to-consumer (DTC) led via digital services over selling products. What do those leading the industry have in common? Many of them are mastering customer and data-


36 | June 2023


centricity, underpinned the flexibility, scalability or future-fit of composable commerce.


What external societal and cultural influences have increased pressure on retailers to adapt and drive innovation? Te pandemic forced many retailers to go back to the drawing board on their existing strategies. Indeed, many successful businesses threw strategy out the window and started improvising on the fly. As we emerge from the pandemic, retailers must build on what they’ve achieved so far to create further efficiencies and streamline costs. In general, businesses that had already invested in digitalisation


and community-building were more successful at weathering the pandemic storm. Take Nike, which pulled rapidly ahead of its


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