Retail: The next industry to be disrupted by the cloud?

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Euan Harris.

I watched with interest recently an interview with NetSuite CEO, Zach Nelson on Bloomberg TV. During the interview Nelson stated his belief that retail wasn’t dead and that Apple had shown the way to all retailers with regards customer experience. Nelson also stated that in his mind, retail would be the next industry to be “disrupted by the cloud”. In this blog I will examine some of the reasons why retailers might look to the cloud for business management systems that help to grow their business.

Customer Experience

Retailers are faced with a battle on two fronts, being squeezed by the need to cut costs at the same time as customers are demanding an increasingly better experience. They expect an ‘omnichannel’ shopping experience where they can interact with a brand through any channel and receive a consistent experience across the board. They want to be able to shop anywhere, on any device and be able to receive merchandise anywhere, hence the rise of offerings such as ‘click and collect’…

Many industry analysts believe that the recent demise of some major high street retailers is partly down to their failure to adapt to the demands of their customer base and offer a complete multichannel experience. As retail becomes increasingly more competitive and customers more demanding, now more than ever, IT should be a central part in the strategy for growth. They need a system which allows them to sell across multiple channels, centralise inventory management and offer a holistic shopping experience, while closing the loop with personalised customer service and marketing communications. Integration across all channels is key and the cloud offers smaller retailers a chance to compete and punch above their weight…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2013/feb/27/retail-the-next-industry-to-be-disrupted-by-the-cloud/