StORES Magazine - September 2007 - (Page B9) Focus of enterprise investments is improving the cross-channel customer experience For the third consecutive year, merchandise management (including item, price and inventory management) is a priority, with 45 percent of retailers planning to improve these systems. Aging merchandise management systems at the heart of the enterprise are forcing many retailers to replace this foundation as part of their architecture strategy. The trend is contributing to significant adoption of retail ERP, which the industry is finally embracing as packaged application suites become viable options. Half of the retailers surveyed also planned investments in retail planning systems to more effectively capture demand signals and respond with more accurate financial, assortment, allocation and pricing strategies. New functions like store clustering by attributes, pack optimization, lifecycle pricing and size profiling allow retailers to plan at more granular levels than ever before. Recognizing that the cross-channel shopper spends nearly one-third more than her single-channel counterpart and that more than half of in-store purchase decisions are influenced by online research, a remarkable 60 percent of survey participants plan to add to, improve or replace their B2C e-commerce platforms. To increase intelligence about consumers and build shopping allegiance, 45 percent of retailers plan to add to, improve or replace their customer relationship management (CRM) applications in 2007. Leaders seek to retain and expand relationships with their most valuable customers by providing consistent and positive cross-channel customer interactions. 45% of retailers plan to add to, improve or replace their customer relationship management (CRM) applications in 2007 FIGURE 10: Retail applications – enterprise retail systems Merchandise Management Initial Price Optimization Promotion Optimization Advertising Management & Execution Markdown Optimization Retail Planning Space Planning Location Management E-Commerce/ Crosschannel Management Customer Relationship Management Not Using Replace Add to or improve Maintain First time — 10% 45 45 — 45% 5 20 30 — 50% 5 20 25 — 40% 5 20 35 — 45% 5 5 45 — 15 5 45 35 — 45% — 15 40 — 30% 5 25 35 5 15% — 60 25 — 15% 5 40 30 10 WWW.STORES.ORG STORES / SEPTEMBER 2007 B9 http://WWW.STORES.ORG
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.