Retail businesses were set to enjoy a strong golden quarter despite gloomy consumer confidence, and industry experts are already predicting a return to pre-pandemic levels of business success.
Despite worries surrounding the UK autumn budget, consumers have shown to have higher incomes and savings to draw on, and an appetite for promotional and discounted goods.
The consumer base is there, leading to a season of buying – but are your current customer systems, processes and infrastructure prepared to handle this increased pressure, writes Jon Bance, Chief Operating Officer at Leading Resolutions.
Retailers have already recognised that staying proactive and planning ahead can yield substantial long-term benefits. This is especially true when assessing and improving IT business systems. Whilst many retailers may have experienced growth over the past few years, there are massive differences between what they need for their future strategies dependent on organisation sizes, resources and growth goals.
For some businesses, IT networks and systems have been designed and developed to support all the departments in their business – including retail, logistics and head office functions. Although this may have worked in years past, including in times where business direction may pivot or trading models change, implementing an IT solution that can work with whatever the future might bring is a worry keeping a lot of business owners up at night.
IT is fundamental to business success. E-commerce capabilities and customer engagement are key, and understanding whether your IT is capable and what upgrades need to be taken is necessary to ensure continued growth for retail businesses.
Reviewing your existing operations
Understanding the current state of retail operations is a key first step, not just as it relates to business efficiency but also in the wider context of the retailer’s market sector, size and trading position. To deliver the next steps and outcomes that are proportionate and pragmatic, it’s important to understand each business on a case-by-case basis.
In reviewing different aspects of the current state of IT within a business, tech consultants can analyse and construct a broader IT strategy to implement now for the future. This involves accounting for IT organisation and available resources, levels of governance and processing, available investment and budgeting, the levels of application across operations and an assessment of existing technical infrastructure.
Reduce business risk amidst increasing cyber threats
Restructuring operations across IT to improve services and application deliveries is a critical part of reducing business risk. It’s most important that business leaders and their IT operators are aligned on defining a clear roadmap for improving technical infrastructure and applications, including understanding the risks of network use as operations expand. IT and data security audits are the first steps in figuring out where the problems lie, yet not enough business leaders are prepared with this information in hand to make informed decisions about their security needs.
In an increasingly risky cyber landscape, ensuring legacy systems which may provide security vulnerabilities is a key component. But balancing an IT strategy focused on buy versus build, and moving to replace commodity systems with best-in-breed commercial products will be a critical point to manage and align with any functional requirements. Businesses must move away from legacy networks that may no longer be fit for their expanding operations, but also in a way that doesn’t create additional security risks.
That doesn’t always mean a new addition is a secure one. When it comes to onboarding AI – a technology many retailers are already seeing as the next big upgrade for their existing technology stacks – onboarding a new tool may provide another attack surface for cyber actors to take advantage of. You don’t want to be providing an open back door to your operations just for the sake of increased efficiency, so keeping your business data – especially sensitive customer data – secure amidst upgrading your operations is critical. This means quickly identifying potential data and identity risk points to drive proactive security, which is ever-important for retailers and e-commerce businesses in today’s cyber landscape.
A more service-focused organisation
Investing in your IT is a necessary way to give your operations a competitive edge in today’s business landscape. Advanced data analytics, retail AI and automation, clienteling and even in-store or online customer aids are just a few of the recent technology developments that have already seen massive business value, yet not every retailer has been able to adopt them, leaving them further behind the pack.
Creating a more service-focused IT strategy that works in tandem with your retail business growth is needed when defining a wider retail business strategy, not just for thriving in the golden quarter but in also planning for the years to come. Without a tailored IT strategy that works alongside your retail business needs, retailers will struggle to survive in an already competitive market.
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