IT Offers Big Gains for Retailers

Retail is a people business, whether the product is groceries, videos, or luxury hotel rooms. Intuition, instincts, and information each play a key role in merchandising and selling. But increasingly what's needed is insight into customers and the business itself. The challenges have never been greater. Delivering the level of service that's expected today means providing a personal touch whether a customer is shopping in the store, doing business on an affiliate's Web site, or calling Product Support.

To thrive in the face of intense competition requires real-time retailing. It means using software more strategically�to gain insight into consumers and store operations, to capture processes and improve performance across the value chain, to know what's in demand this morning, and be able to predict accurately what customers will buy next season.

IT�and software in particular�has a direct impact throughout retailing, from the POS system at checkout to the payroll system on the desktop that makes sure sales associates get paid. The typical retail enterprise relies on mainframe and other legacy systems that don't connect with each other or with newer applications and technologies, from ringing up sales to cutting payroll checks to restocking shelves. Many of today's challenges with technology stem from disconnects between the software we rely on and the processes�purchasing, merchandising, and selling products - that are the lifeblood of a successful retail concern. Advances in software are changing that�providing flexible, standardized ways to integrate systems and collaborate across the value chain from suppliers to customers.

Using technology for smart retailing is about much more than linking a couple of applications or putting PDAs in the hands of employees. The biggest gains for retailers will come through using innovative software to improve visibility into store operations and shoppers, to make decisions based on useful analysis instead of disconnected data, and to react to change quickly rather than do business as usual. Using advances in technology, retailers can create solutions for smarter shopping, smarter selling, and smarter operations that help:

• Win customer loyalty by providing personalized service based on interactions across multiple channels.

• Manage and move merchandise better, from forecasting demand to stocking the right mix to optimizing prices.

• Free store managers from the back office to spend more time on the sales floor.

The Microsoft platform is used in shopping malls, boutiques, and online storefronts around the world to establish insight and oversight, capture processes and intellectual property, and free employees from routine tasks so they can form richer relationships with customers.

Building on the Microsoft platform enables increased connectivity across the enterprise, with the ability to integrate Microsoft and third-party technology in modular ways. This provides for high degrees of reuse and greater flexibility in evolving applications over time.

Merchandisers are using the Microsoft platform today to make information available to the people who need it, whether it's a store detective catching fraud in the check-out line, a customer going online to verify the status of an order, or a sales rep closing a deal at the customer's place of business.

A rich ecosystem of retail industry partners, including leading systems integrators (SIs), independent software vendors (ISVs), and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), are aligning their solutions with the Microsoft Smarter Retailing Initiative, ensuring that retailers can choose the partners and solutions that best fit their needs over time.

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