Create an Omnichannel or BOPIS Presence

Create an Omni-Channel or BOPIS Presence

By Richard Halter

The Wizard of POS?

The ability for a consumer to find and purchase an item online and then go into the real store to pick up that purchase has become paramount in today's environment. Most retailers added this BOPIS capability by changing their existing systems. That leads to all kinds of problems. Let’s explore how to make BOPIS happen natively within your system leveraging an extensive set of Retail Technology Standards freely available at OMG.org/Retail.

Original web model

For thousands of years retail was dominated by Brick-and-Mortar stores where you physically had to go into the store to purchase things.? This led to a focused support system with lots of unique databases from every vendor and retailer.

Then along came this WEB and traditional retailers thought it was a fad that would fade away.? They thought it was so different it needed its own ecosystem and as a result they setup a parallel world.? That led to them becoming parallel rather than integrated.

The basic flaw in that logic was that retail information hasn’t changed since the stone age.? All that has happened is more information has been added.

That’s when some got smart and decided to build a system that handled both online and instore.? That gave birth to the Omnichannel revolution.? Originally, they tried to bolt online to their instore models.? As one would expect that led to lots of weird problems.

First Omnichannel POS - 2010

In 2010, I was asked to teach a company about how to implement an Omnichannel system from scratch using the existing Standard Retail Technology Models.

That model took the output from the web added any additional instore items.? Moved the work to the payment ecosystem where the customer paid for the purchases and printed a receipt at a receipt print station the POS systems shared a set of printers.

This model was announced at the 2013 New York National Retail Federation show.? It was such a success that NCR bought the company.? (I claim it was because of me ??) That is the Emerald POS from NCR.

What is a Channel?

To move into this new world, every vendor came up with their own concept of what a channel was.? A channel is just as its name implies a path to enter a sales transaction.? Here is the definition that OMG/ARTS created.

ARTS Channel Definition

“An identified, named, defined set of functions, states, touch points and media that define how parties interact in the buying and selling of goods and services.”

As I said, in the end, it is just a sales transaction from different sources.? As noted, the information and the data model for both online and instore were virtually identical.? The user interface was the primary difference between the two.? Today many vendors are using the online UI model to run their instore sales.

iVURM Model (interactive Virtual Unified Retail Model)

To merge these worlds and to help people stay focused, I created this “interactive Virtual Unified Retail Model” (iVURM).? It is a closed loop system that starts with the strategy.? This helps focus the efforts on what you are trying to accomplish.? It then moves to the business architecture.? Business architecture is built up from various value streams used to tie the business process needed to execute that strategy.? We can now link all that to the people, organization and information needed to support that value stream(s).? We can now use the business intelligence to measure, monitor and help direct that effort to support that strategy and keep it going in the right direction.? It is normal for execution to drift off from what it was created to accomplish.? These are just normal curves in the road.? The iVURM model helps drive you to success.

BOPIS Strategies

What is our way around the iVURM loop?? Here are several set of strategies that relate to Buy Online Pickup In Store.? Remembering that repeat customers are what makes your business succeed.? Here are some business strategies - be able to attract new customers, entice customers to come in more frequently, cross sell/up sell strategy, be able to retain customers, and improve profitability of various operations.

BOPIS Business Architecture - Value Streams

As we move around the iVURM loop, we move from the Business Strategies to the Business Architecture.? This is where all the components to execute the strategy are identified.? Here is a sample of BOPIS Value Streams set in the iVURM model.?

For this paper we will focus on the Direct-To-Consumer Value Stream.? The customer searches the Manufacturers Website. Pick the Items they want to purchase.? Then Order the Items and have the Manufacturer Ship the Items to them or they go pick them up at the store.?

Customer Order Items Value Stream

Each of these separate value streams has a whole set of components that they must do to execute that value stream.? These steps are called Capability Maps.? Here are 3 steps tied to the Customer Order Items Value Stream.? The Channel Management Capability, the Customer Management Capability and the Point-Of-Sale Management Capability.? All of these are necessary to run the Value Stream.?

BOPIS Customer Management capabilities

Depending on the complexity these can be broken down even further.? What does this capability mean, what are the customer’s preferences, etc. This isn’t a design document.? So, I will stop digging down deeper into this world.

BOPIS Business Process Model

Now we have the Business Architecture with its Value Streams and Capabilities laid out, let’s move around the iVURM loop to the Business Process Model world.? For this example, we will take a quick look at the Manage Orders Process complexity

BOPIS Manage Order Process Complex Ecosystem

When we drill down into the Manage Order Process Model, we see how complex it is to simply order something.? It starts with the Order Channel itself; then what sort of Order Processing is needed.? On to Routing the order and Fulfillment.? This includes the Financial area (who wants to get paid and how?).? We want to Analyze how we are doing and where can we do things better (AI can help here).? We also, no are required to, market our products.? Without marketing, the best products in the world will simply wither away.

BOPIS Enterprise Architecture

(Sorry now we get scary)

When we drill down, we can now see the swim lanes associated with the Business Process.? We can now see how complex this world really is as we have identified all the parts of the business that have to interoperate to make this a success.

That moves us now around the iVURM model into the Enterprise Architecture area.? We are now getting into the detailed data/information and messages needed to manage this world.? This is the area where OMG/ARTS standards cover almost all (80-90% the content – the messages, the data model, the devices, etc. Check it out at Retail Domain Task Force | Object Management Group (omg.org).

Business intelligence

Now that we have the information we need, let’s move around the iVURM model to the Business Intelligence area.? This is only one of the KPI’s in the ARTS Key Performance Measures Version 3 white paper. Unfortunately you will have to reach out to me to get a copy of this paper.

This is where AI can help drive the retailer to success.? Here is my YouTube video Artificial Intelligence in Retail - https://lnkd.in/g2Y8kpaF enjoy

Conclusion

I’ve taken you through the Omnichannel development using the iVURM model to help guide us.? Fundamentally you can see a channel is a way to interact with the customer.? To take this to the next level is called Unified Commerce (Unified Commerce, the Future is Now (youtube.com)).

To see more details on Omnichannel check out this YouTube Video - Create an Omni Channel or BOPIS Presence (youtube.com)

-?????? Check out my book "ARTS for Retail Using Technology to turn your consumers into customers and make a profit” (3 book series) Kindle Edition https://lnkd.in/g4SqtRB8. You get a MILLION dollars worth of knowledge from over 1500 subject matter experts for less than $25.

-??????I’ve created a whole set of YouTube videos https://www.youtube.com/user/richardthegeek/videos to show how to use this information.

-??????I’ve also created a School of Retail with courses:

·?????? on the "Modern Retail Architecture" It is a 10 lesson self-paced course.

·?????? on "Unified Commerce" https://schoolofretail.thinkific.com/courses/unified-commerce..

·?????? on "Modern POS World" It is a 14 lesson self-paced course.

·?????? My next one is under construction called "Standard Agile Retail Data Model - Who did what"

Reach out to me to learn how to get access to these courses.? “May the force be with you!”

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