Doing more with less is nothing new in the world of retail. The pressure to continually evolve and improve is a way of life to those who operate retail stores. But recent times have seen a step-change, with more retailers than ever looking at how they can automate and streamline their business – and they’re turning in their droves to cloud-based retail solution as an enabling platform.
Automation is all about using retail technology and process innovation to create efficiency, lower costs and enhance customer experience. Sounds like a pretty tall order? It certainly can be, but the reality is that for most retail stores, it’s not an option, but a must-have. Automation has become a necessity if they are to continue to operate profitably.
Need for automation resulting from the great resignation
Recent events have seen a rapid acceleration of automation in retail. The ‘Great Resignation’ – a pandemic phenomenon first identified in April 2021 – has seen thousands of workers, particularly in retail stores, resign from their jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the figure was 687,000 in the US in September alone. Falling numbers of staff have forced retailers’ hands and are driving an immediacy in the need for automation.
Automation with a cloud-based retail solution
Cloud-based systems have long been recognised as a way, for smaller retail stores especially, to be flexible and to avoid the overheads of having fixed in-house infrastructure. But all retailers, including enterprises, now realise that the cloud is not solely about reducing cost, it is actually what underpins and enables much automation. This has led to rapid growth in the adoption of cloud retail solutions, with spending in the global retail industry forecast at 16.3% per year between 2021 and 2025.
Cloud-based retail solution enable retail stores to be agile and rapidly implement new capabilities. It helps them to collect data from multiple sources, simplify workflows, increase productivity and enhance the customer experience. Cloud-based retail solutions underpin some of the key automations we see in today’s market.
As retailers continue to strive to automate the processes in their business, cloud-based retail solutions provide the underpinning retail technology to drive success.
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