News

Why retailers need to refresh business strategies

July 22, 2016

Consumers expect convenience, ease, and a compelling shopping experience and that means retailers need to re-examine business strategies.

"Retailers must recognize and drive digital transformation," said Robert Eastman, research manager, retail omnichannel IT strategies at IDC Retail Insights, in a release. "Retailers dealing with legacy, disconnected, siloed systems have latencies and speeds that cannot support modern commerce, nor do most of the legacy systems allow retailers to quickly launch the types of services that customers today are expecting. At a time when customer expectations are rising and customers are more digitally fluent and digitally equipped than ever before, customers are expecting that their shopping experience will be easy, convenient, frictionless, and available anytime everywhere."

The latest IDCX report offers five resources to help retailers move forward.

"Digital transformation requires a top-down study and redesign of business strategy/leadership, business processes, human engagement (workforce and others), information monetization, and technology," Leslie Hand, VP, IDC Retail Insights, said in the release. "It is more critical than ever for retailers to adapt experiences delivered to ever-changing consumer needs and to be agile and innovative, leveraging all of the advantages of current-state digital systems."