That’s one of the findings of a new SAP survey completed in conjunction with the British Retail Consortium (BRC). The research also finds that 90 per cent plan to optimise inventory levels in the supply chain in order to better manage costs. Their goal is to reduce the inventory by holding less stock in the supply chain and optimising stock in the store around customers’ needs. Also, retailers want to understand their customers better and don’t think loyalty cards are the answer. Loyalty schemes are often written off as a good way to give away margin, and retailers are seeking other ways to understand their customers’ needs. Basket analysis, once regarded as a highly specialised activity, gains favour as a way to match items and groups of items to individual customer groups. And in a downturn, retailers clearly recognise that they need to look at past purchases and create better forecasts.
They also believe technology will play a critical role in reaching their goals in the areas of inventory management, customer analytics, labour and task management, online shopping, merchandising and helping to improve the customer experience. “Retailers are also looking at staff as a way to improve customer service. The survey showed that 35 per cent of retailers are using technology to automate processes, not to reduce the number of staff, but to allocate their time to serving customers,” says Richard Mills, retail industry principal at SAP UKI. “There will always be customers and those stores that offer the customer what they want will still perform well. The recession will drive some players out of the market, but those that capitalise on their investments and opportunities have a chance of coming out of the recession stronger than they ever were.”
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