Majority of Retailers view digital as an enabler for better customer service or greater efficiencies and have adopted technology to improve in these parameters. At Sonata, we believe not many retailers have truly awoken to the possibilities presented by Digital.
At Sonata, we look at digital as an opportunity to shape a long-term sustainable business model which that includes the entire retail eco-system as a network of suppliers, franchisees, employees all supporting the central actor (retailer) maximizing customer’s lifetime value.
This is not a transactional approach but a collaborative mindset where the retailer invests in building the capabilities for the entire network to be agile and responsive to consumer needs, attracting and retaining shoppers being the shared objective of the entire network.
The main advantage of such a collaborative mindset for Digital is being able to define the right Strategy and hence the technology for enabling these collaborations that will positively impact cost, service level, enable informed decisions.
Core to the business model of retailers and performance in the future will be driven by how quickly digital gets embedded to increase cohesion, agility and responsiveness within this network. The top three enablers to kick start the digital agenda should be:
- At the very basic, increase engagement with customers at all channels, stores or online, builds long lasting relationships and enables retailers can explore avenues to build services, explore opportunities to segment and personalize
- Creation of a “Connected" digital ecosystem empowering employees, customers and partners which helps you drive Intelligent Transactions, Innovate with Open Systems and scale across Markets & Segments
- Today, we see that competition is increasingly not between individual retailers but the wider constellation of alliances that the retailer builds within their network. The ability to foster a culture of collaboration is a critical enabler for any disruptive transformation in the retail sector
Digital is as much about people and mindsets as it is about technology. In our next section we will dive deeper to explore and build on the digital agenda.
We at Sonata constantly look to help organizations go beyond the “digital transformation” buzzword to derive business outcomes from their digital investments via our unique and trademarked “Platformation” methodology.
Talk to us today to understand how “Platformation” can help identify and correlate the retail market variables and your own business specific factors into key levers that can drive the journey to ensure an open, scalable, connected and intelligent ecosystem which is sustainable with short- and long- term realization of value.
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