In the last couple of months I am seeing a lot of large to mid sized bricks and mortar retailers in India wanting to go in for a integrated multi channel retail strategy. The observation they face is that most of the traditional retailers may not understand the the extent of business process changes they would need to do to their existing business process to adapt to multi channel. The IT departments want to put in a multi-channel technology platform in place but do not have the necessary investment budgets for them to truly go in for enterprise platforms like Sterling Commerce, IBM Commerce, Microsoft Commerce etc.. They seem to be in a dilemma on how to proceed next. I have been speaking to multiple retailers in India who are in this predicament.
So how do these guys go forward…
My suggestion is, first they need to get their business process planning in place. Points like, how will they plan and create a fulfillment strategy for demand from web, tele-sales, mobile sales in a diverse country like India which has complex logistical challenges. Challenges like multiple tax structures and transportation issues (hope some are eased once GST is introduced). Pricing strategy, promotion, assortment, branding strategy etc need to be evolved. Only if they have some idea on this then they should proceed to the IT side. I see most of the retailers not doing their basic homework before looking in for the IT solution and they seem to be jumping directly into IT solutions. So my suggestion is first do your basic homework…
From the technology side, even though mature platforms like IBM Commerce, Sterling, MS Commerce exist, I do not foresee the retailers putting in budgets immediately. Except a few retailers like telecom companies or CPG/Direct sales majors or B2B CPG MNC’s, Indian retailers do not have so much budget to spend. The only other way is for the technology vendors to come up with some kind of SaaS platform for these retailers. The other option which I see strongly coming up is usage of open source. I am working with multiple retailers in India to suggest them open source platforms like Jhoomla, OFBIZ etc to develop their first generation multi channel technology platform. These platforms have now matured and can be used for supporting enterprise e-commerce and MCR initiatives.
The other area which I suggest which some retailers are realizing is the importance which they need to give to customer experience online. The role of usability design and branding experts and the value addition which they bring is slowly seeping in the IT departments. In the last couple of months I am seeing a very good awareness created for this area.
Lets see what the new decade brings to multi channel retail … one thing is sure no retailer can afford to ignore this area...
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