History has shown that the retail industry cyclically undergoes drastic shifts in business operations. Digital retail technology is currently the most significant catalyst for transformation within the retail sector. Our first introduction to e-commerce in the 1990s bought us businesses such as Amazon. Based on its tremendous success, there was a rush by retailers to create a “dot-com” business. The dot-com proverbial bubble burst and most of these e-commerce businesses were gone as quickly as they had arrived.
The uncertainty around the e-commerce economy is gone and the reality is that digital retailing is the strongest and most stable it has ever been. According to the Harvard Business Review, e-commerce is now approaching $200 billion in annual revenue in the United States alone. For retail companies to grow or capture market share, they must embrace digital retailing and incorporate advances in technology to create innovative ways to combine digital and traditional best practices to create a customer experience that hasn’t been offered before.
Because of technological innovations, the advantages of digital retailing continue to increase. Companies however cannot capture market share if they operate with an analog approach in a digital industry. Many retailers are not willing to embrace this digital revolution and are slow to make changes in their brick and mortar stores. With the advent of omnichannel shopping options, customers are becoming less forgiving if their in-store experience does not meet or exceed their online experiences. If these retailers want to remain competitive and grow their businesses, they need to adopt an omnichannel strategy or else face the risk of becoming obsolete.
Today, every customer is a digital customer and has rising expectations about the quality and ubiquity of a seamless shopping experience. It is no longer sufficient to distinguish your business by offering lower prices. Retailers that are forward thinking consider ways to enhance and improve customer satisfaction as well as the purchasing encounter. For companies to be competitive, it is vital that they transform almost every stage of their retail chain processes; from back office and enterprise systems, to customer-facing functions such as payments, loyalty / reward programs, customer management and services.
SBSC's expertise in retail management provides innovative and powerful solutions that meet the business requirements of the most demanding retail environments and provide rapid return on investment, low cost of ownership, and a single point of accountability. We use our knowledge of the retail space to provide customized solutions that are designed to meet the evolving merchandise and service expectations of today’s connected, cross-channel shopper. SBSC’s retail service offerings will help your organization to use industry-leading technology and business intelligence methodologies to stay competitive and capture market share.
- Operation and Business Strategy
- Supply Chain Management
- Store Portfolio Optimization
- Business Intelligence
- Customer Insights & Segmentation
- In-Store Optimization & Customer Management
- Point of Sale (POS)
Areas Covered
Our clients have used us to complete the following:
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Store Portfolio Optimization
We worked with our clients to complete a detailed analysis of the variations and trends impacting consumer needs and then developed a solution that identified redundancies as well as gaps in product demands. With the implementation of portfolio optimization best practices, we can ensure a continual improvement process that will better position our clients to quickly respond to the evolving needs of the consumer.
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Supplier Chain Health Assessment
We reviewed the end-to-end supplier chain ecosystem and implemented process changes that leverage expertise across the organization, dissolved any inward thinking environments, promoted information sharing and access as well as eliminated duplication of effort across the various business areas to align and support achievement of long-term operational strategies.
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Store Portfolio Optimization
We worked with our clients to complete a detailed analysis of the variations and trends impacting consumer needs and then developed a solution that identified redundancies as well as gaps in product demands. With the implementation of portfolio optimization best practices, we can ensure a continual improvement process that will better position our clients to quickly respond to the evolving needs of the consumer.
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Consumer Insights & Segmentation
Our understanding of customer segments needs and behaviors assisted with designing processes to be used by our client to cross reference consumer insight data with operational proficiencies to isolate opportunities to increase revenues by growing customer loyalty and confidence. Developing a customer facing strategy ensures that our clients only focus time, effort and resources on those areas that will assist with realizing the full revenue potential of their products, services and relationships.