Championing Retail Operations Technology

Retail Operations

Author: Jonathan Price

23 March 2017

Never underestimate the potential of your retail operations team. The activities of your central retail support, store communications, VM, marketing and field and store teams are the key to unlocking a seamless in-store experience.

Top-notch retail operations

Retail operations teams are the lifeblood of brick-and-mortar organisations, but they are often overlooked in favour of investment in omnichannel initiatives. At StorIQ, we believe great shopping experiences are the result of every single detail being right. We believe that when store teams are empowered and supported to get the details right, the results can be spectacular. Click-and-collect and mPOS can only achieve long term success if retailers are willing to invest in retail operations.

Of course, we understand that retailers must invest in customer facing technologies to fit the demands of the modern consumer. But who will ultimately be residing over these new technologies? Well that will be the retail operations team. How effective your communications and operations are will directly effect the success of the new technology.

Invest in your retail operations function before investing in retail innovation.

Top-notch retail operations and store communication can:

provide a better and more consistent customer experience
unlock the true potential of omni-channel investment (for more see here)
deliver strategic change quicker and in a way that is more likely to succeed, for example, shifting the store model to one that is more ‘experiential’ requires all components of retail operations to succeed
improve workload planning, increase retail productivity and drive down costs
deliver brand promise

Technology as an enabler

There is no replacement for people, management, training and individual capability. However, technology can help people do their jobs more efficiently and accurately. In retail operations, technology can improve existing processes, making them faster, automated and more visible. So why are so many retail operations teams working with outdated technology?

Do you have a system in place that allows you to see the activities of your entire store portfolio at the click of a button?

No? Then keep reading!

A purpose-built Retail Operations and Store Communication platform can:

make the lives of store teams easier and ensure they can spend more time with customers
cut down on admin, data entry and time-wasting
make communication more accessible, easier and mobile
close the loop on task management
improve consistency across the board, from store visits through to in-store execution
make it easier to find, share and ‘roll-out’ best practice
achieve VM compliance at speed
provide retail ops metrics and reporting, including store and region benchmarking, that in turn helps drive further improvement

The Retail Operations Technology Champion

Who is the retail operations champion? Usually they’re a senior-level executive or in a retail operations management role. They will work with the Central Operations Director, Head of Retail or Retail Operations Director. In some cases, it’s the CEO, CFO or CIO who realises the value of top-notch retail operations and the investment in appropriate technology. Whoever the Champion is – We salute you!

Our mobile optimised, cloud based software helps our customers thrive in a multichannel world. Click here to learn more!

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