CitiXsys announces the launch of “Did you know series…”. The series will help our Partners and Customers to improve their process efficiencies and further increase their ROI from products & solutions from CitiXsys. In the current version, the series will run for 3 weeks, with two Did You Knows per week.
Few segments of the industry have changed as dramatically in recent times as Retail. Many retailers continue to view the changing business landscape as a result of the ebbs and highs of a turbulent economy and as a result continue to exercise the traditional models of cost differentiation to increase sales and customer footfall.
Changing socio-economic landscape clubbed with the 2 most constrained entities for a customer – time and money have lead the customer to be far more rushed and hence demanding. Customers are going far beyond the traditional media to inform their purchasing choices. Near continuous access to the internet, influence and penetration of Social Media, is letting the customer maximize both his time and wallet. Shopping and product experiences are shared and discussed online substantially influencing a customer’s decision and buying pattern. Read more…
Modern Retail Systems are known to generate enormous amounts of data, irrespective of the size of operations and their spread. This data, which mainly comprises of historical transactions, is used for all the analysis purposes. Reduction in hardware prices, specifically of storage space and the need to ensure business continuity in scenarios of network breakdowns necessitates the duplication of data across applications and databases across the enterprise.
In order to understand the situation better, it is important to understand the evolutionary cycle of a mid-market retailer from the view point of investment in technology.
In the formative stages of the business, a mid-market retailer has his focus set on setting up and expanding his business. At this stage, issues pertaining to sourcing the merchandise, finalizing the price points, where to open store(s), overall marketing, take precedence than a big investment in a formal fully integrated retail application. From the initial years to the point where the business gets established and the retailer has found that niche; focus on IT investment is relatively less. Most of the mid-market retailer we have interacted with started with in-store automation, which is not a bad or a wrong place to start with. Read more…
In recent months a general sentiment of optimism has been shared by most. The turbulent recessionary months appear to be almost behind us with a display of renewed confidence amongst businesses as well as consumers. Government bailouts and the overhaul of economic policies have boosted consumer confidence, the effects of which appear to be influencing decision making amongst Small and Medium sized Enterprises. Small or medium as they may be, they represent the lower segment of the pyramid. However, by virtue of their status they also represent the foundation for their larger counterparts.
For the overall economy to eventually resemble a “V” shape in economic recession and recovery charting (a sharp decline in economic measures followed by a sharp rise to its previous peak) or for that matter a “U” shaped recovery, industry must perform at the highest level possible to ignite the market. At the heart of all this is the consumer. All the good work by governments will only sustain the economy if the consumer starts spending. Large-scale job losses and reductions in incomes are still so vivid in the minds of consumers, affecting consumer willingness to return to the same level of spending experienced prior to the Global Financial Crisis. Consumer spending habits have changed in today’s markets. What we are seeing today is a trend where consumers are generally positive and happy with a slightly lower quality product simply because the price tag is attractive. Still consumers appear generally happy with the alternative.
The economic downturn has led the customer to be far more demanding and retailers must be ready to accept these pressures and meet customer expectations. Added competition today provided by on-line retailers has also contributed to retailer’s challenges as numerous product comparison sites – though enabling the customer to get their money’s worth, by the same measure exerts enormous pressure on the retailer to have an optimized warehousing & distribution system. Read more…
