Connectivity Is Key for the Next Stage of Retail Growth

One positive thing to come out of this pandemic: It’s shown just how tough, resilient and adaptable small business owners can be. 

Can’t dine inside their restaurant? They will deliver, offer curbside service, and even sell recipe kits. Can’t come browse their game store? They will revamp their website and turn in-store employees into delivery drivers. And they’ll do everything on a video conference, from beauty consultations to entire escape rooms. 

Most impressive of all: Even as businesses have faced their own struggles, they have still found ways to serve the community. Small business owners and enterprises alike have helped to feed, clothe, and provide for those hit hardest hit by the pandemic.

I’ve been working with business leaders for over a decade, and I was still surprised by the amount of ingenuity and evolution on display in the past nine months.

Even though the next year in retail will be unpredictable at best, I’m excited to see how we meet whatever challenges arise. 

To help retail business owners chart their next few moves, I recently hosted a #BIZTALKS Twitter chat sponsored by AT&T Business titled “What’s Next for Retail: Strategies for Growth.” I was joined by a panel of retail industry experts: 

• Melissa Gonzalez, CEO & Founder, The Lionesque Group (@MelsStyles)
• Shira Rubinoff, President & Co-Founder, Prime Tech Partners (@Shirastweet)
• Kevin Jackson, CEO, GC GlobalNet (@kevin_jackson)
• Dez Blanchfield, Founder & CEO, Sociaall Inc. (@dez_blanchfield)

Here’s what retailers can take away from the conversation.

Providing a Seamless Customer Experience

Customers increasingly demand a responsive, personalized experience that spans offline and online interactions (as well as the in-between interactions, like curbside pickup for online orders). To meet that demand, retailers must develop a fully-integrated, data-driven omnichannel contact center. This behind-the-scenes orchestration requires a free flow of data throughout the organization, empowering employees with the knowledge they need to best serve customers.

“Omnichannel communications blended with a multi-touchpoint customer experience… is a huge opportunity for retailers to exploit,” says Kevin.

Melissa agrees that “Retailers and brands need to provide a customer-centric experience and reduce friction points.” 

This seamless customer experience relies on connectivity — it requires collecting data from multiple sources, synthesizing and making it available to employees in real time. Retailers need to refresh their networks to make sure they can meet the data demand, with software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) for a more flexible, responsive, efficient and agile solution.

Kevin reminds us that the customer’s digital life extends beyond their interactions with the brand: “Retailers need to be leveraging all digital communications channels, including social media and internet video. This also required SD-WAN broadband capabilities. That’s how to become an integral part of the customer’s digital life stream,” he says.

Promoting Safety for In-Person Sales

The pandemic is a major concern for retailers right now, and unfortunately looks to be for the foreseeable future. The silver lining is that the steps retailers take right now to keep customers safe and preserve the customer experience will serve them well in a post-pandemic landscape, too.

Shira recommends that retailers explore options for “Contactless shopping, contactless mobile payments & self-checkouts, new cleanliness protocols, self cleaning robots, and expanding ecommerce.”

Intelligent tech solutions can help keep customers safe as well. Melissa says, “With camera intelligence, retailers can automate the adherence of occupancy limitations and social distancing guidelines, identify customer interactions with sales associates, measure distance between people, and receive alerts when requirements are not being met.”

Dez adds that “AI, Machine Learning, Video Intelligence solutions provide near-real-time situational awareness and data analysis from new or existing cameras & IoT sensors, to improve safety and business operations.”  

Ensuring Cybersecurity for Connectivity

The future of retail depends on connectivity, but connectivity depends on security. As we expand the number of connected devices, and the data flowing through them multiplies, cybersecurity is crucial for keeping retail up and running.

There are three key areas of opportunity for security: 

1. Endpoint and network security for IoT and PoS devices
2. DDoS and application layer defense
3. Cloud security

Retailers need all three, and the best way to make sure they’re covered is with managed security services. 

Melissa adds that it’s crucial to make sure your security services can scale to meet future needs: “Investing in advanced endpoint and network security services that scale as they expand their IT footprint with IoT technologies is key,” she says. 

For Shira, a DDoS defense and recovery strategy is essential, especially considering the increased vulnerability from employees working remotely. “Retailers should prepare DDoS defenses ahead of time… to provide business continuity during a potential attack strategy,” she says.

Maintaining an Agile and Resilient Supply Chain

The ultimate growth strategy for retailers is investing in an agile and resilient supply chain. That’s the foundation for making sure you have inventory available to customers and that the inventory is where it needs to be to meet customer demand. Flexibility and visibility are the key components for creating a supply chain that can weather whatever 2021 has in store for us.

“With greater visibility, item level visibility, retailers and brands can get ahead of any unexpected issues before shipments reach their destinations and better deliver upon customers’ growing expectations of same-day (or close to it) delivery,” Melissa says. 

This type of modern supply chain is only possible through connectivity. Inventory management, transportation optimization, fleet management, sustainability — it all relies on connectivity with IoT devices. Shira says, “IoT is the digital connectivity technology that has probably had the most significant impact on the supply chain and the transportation and logistics industry.” 

Dez adds that increased visibility can help on the operations and compliance side, too: “Through the IoT, Fleet Management enables retail to optimise fleet routes, integrate compliance tools and help minimise regulatory violations and reduce fuel and maintenance costs,” he says.

To supplement the technology, Melissa recommends partnering with vendors who are agile and flexible, too: “Retailers can ensure their supply chain is agile and resilient by making sure producers are flexible, receptive and can respond quickly to changes in demand, customer preferences as well as industry aggravations or disruptions,” she says. 

Join Us for the Next #BIZTALKS Chat

A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the chat, and all of you who followed along and added to the conversation. We hope to see you all for the next chat, where we’ll be looking ahead at the investments businesses should make for success in the coming year and beyond. The chat is scheduled for 12 pm CST on December 9. 

You can follow @ATTBusiness and check out the #BIZTALKS hashtag for the conversation, and  Click here to set a calendar reminder.

To learn more about connectivity for retail, visit the AT&T Business Retail page.