Reshaping the Retail Industry with Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is the need of the hour and is critical to growth of several industries including retail. With increased emphasis on digital payment and easy availability of the internet, people are eventually moving to digital platforms for businesses. In such a scenario, to thrive and grow retail businesses further in the digitade, it is inevitable for them to adapt to changing needs of consumers.

According to Gartner, by 2023 over 50% of the consumer spending will be done online and about 60% of it will be done through mobile devices. Digital transformation of the retail industry is set to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer experience and increase sales manifold. This tends to reshape the traditional retail model at an exponential rate and prepare it to embrace the changing trends coming its way.?

Some of the popular use cases of digital transformation in retail are:

1. Digital Payment

With supercycle of digitalization in the post-pandemic phase across the nation, possibly every vendor is able to offer the retailers convenient and secure payment options like GooglePay, PhonePe, and Paytm. Advent of digital payment has considerably reduced the need to carry cash or card and in turn increased the purchasing power of the consumers effectively.?

2. Omnichannel Retail

This model is becoming increasingly popular day by day as it integrates all existing channels to offer a seamless shopping experience to the customers. It blurs the distinction between online and traditional store shopping and helps businesses understand their customers better based on the analytics.?

3. Artificial Intelligence

Integration of AI in the retail sector will help businesses analyze their customers and understand their behavior based on history of purchases, preferred style, size, trends, etc. This will also enable customized recommendations for consumers which is much in demand at present.?

4. Self Checkout system

These machines installed in retail stores nowadays allow customers to complete their own transactions without any intervention from the store staff. This will significantly reduce the burden on staff and eliminate the need for long queues.?

5. Cost Optimization

Digital transformation of businesses will also help in cost optimization as comparing through price analytics with competitions will become easier. This will let the businesses offer competitive prices and thus attract more customers.?

Apart from enhancing customer experience by gaining insights in customer behavior and preferences, digital transformation in retails entails the potential to optimize operations by automating tasks and accessing data analytics in supply chain management, pricing strategies, and inventory management. Digital transformation will also enhance the agility of businesses and enable them to adapt to changing landscape and trends at a rapid pace.?

Let us look at the key strategies that retail businesses must consider for digital transformation:

• Set Business Goals

The first and foremost step in digital transformation of retail businesses will be to define your business goals. Know the areas that are critical to the growth of your business and work backwards. It will be much easier to strategize the digital transformation journey if you realize what you want to achieve.?

• Create a Plan

Having a plan for your digital transformation integration is the next key step. Once you have a goal, plan a strategy and ways by which you can reach there in minimal time and resources.?

• Invest in Technology

Technology is an integral part of digital transformation and hence investing in it would cater to the growth and success of the business altogether. With rapid evolution of technologies, businesses need to adapt to newer technologies and enhance their interfaces.?

• Deliver Customer Satisfaction

Since customer experience is key to the success of any business, delivering enhanced customer experience should be an end goal of businesses.?

• Train Employees

With newer technologies and resources, it is important to ensure that the staff or employees are trained properly and taught about how and when to use certain technologies. Training of employees is an important step to enable successful implementation of digital technologies.?

• Analyze and Improve

Since technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, it is critical that businesses analyze and improve relevant technologies in their business from time to time.?

Digital transformation in retail is a complex process that requires a well-structured and strategized plan for successful implementation. Some of the popular job roles in this area are Management Consultant, Digital Apprentice, Programme Manager, Technical Innovation Manager, etc. ?Businesses must ensure that they don't lose out at any point otherwise the entire efforts and investment will be of no use. It benefits businesses in customer retention and attraction, market analytics, and inventory management in a much better way than traditional retail setting.?