Are you a Digital Retailer? - 10 Questions to Ask?

Retail is becoming divided between the digital champions and the legacy laggards, all COVID has done is reduced the time span to be digitally enabled from 5 years to 2 years. 

We would classify at least 70% of retail businesses as traditional analog businesses currently. Survival and success will depend on retailers' digital and analytics capabilities. Not having this capability is like analog phones (traditional retailers) having to compete against smartphones (digital-enabled retailers), traditional retailers will not be in the game and the window to reset your business is about to slam shut.

“Research by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 60 percent of productivity-boosting opportunities during the next decade will be digital…... One CIO calls this gap in moving to digital a “technological debt” that will have to be paid sooner or later, either by playing catch-up with more technologically advanced peers or suffering competitive disadvantages.” 

Here are 10 questions that will indicate if you are a digital champion or legacy laggard.

1. Have you a fully implemented cloud-based ERP System from Oracle/Netsuite, SAP, or Microsoft?
2. Do you have live Stock Look Up for each store?
3. Do you have automated Click & Collect? ( I will email you when your stock is ready counts as a no)
4. Is a 100% of your stock loaded onto your eCommerce site?
5. Do you Ship from Store plus utilize algorithms to determine the fastest and quickest route for delivery to improve the customer experience and minimize freight costs?
6. Do you deploy best in class Merchandise Financial Planning/ Buying Software such as Oracle, Infor, Blue Yonder, MI 9, Foresight Retail, or equivalent?
7. Do you have RFID to provides an accurate view of stock in-store, in the stock room, in transit, and in the warehouse? ( Tags for store security counts as a no answer)
8. Do you have a senior Chief Marketing Officer/Executive that drives the business strategy, data, product innovation, and customer experience?
9. Do you utilise AI and Machine Learning capability to drive decision making?
10. Do you have a senior data executive and internal or external capability to interpret the data?

Summary:

These 10 questions are the first questions I ask of a Retail Executive in a digital transformation process to give an indication of how far they are along the process.

If they say yes to a question I ask them to please describe why they said yes or show me examples or evidence.

Quite a few executives are uncomfortable with these questions and having to deep dive into explanations and answers, however, being uncomfortable answering these questions pales in comparisson to going though a major digital transformation so is an early indicator of willingness and ability to change.

Next Up Insight:

I am about to publish a white paper on

RETAIL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION – CHOOSING THE RIGHT SYSTEMS What your IT Department doesn’t want you to know.

Email me on [email protected] if you want a sneak preview of the white paper. It explains why these 10 questions are important in your digital transformation journey.