Solutions for Retail

Trends Driving Retail Enterprise IT Buying

Retail is a behemoth among industry sectors. Across all major world economies, its size as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) ranges from 20 to 33 percent. Despite its size, the retail industry has some of the lowest net margins of any sector, at approximately 3 percent.(5) As a result, improvements and efficiencies are paramount and can mean billions of dollars in savings, avoided costs, or both. Until recently, a solid return on investment (ROI) case for data connections between stores and corporate offices was difficult to make in retail—especially in those with a store footprint of less than 10,000 square feet. The monthly cost for T1 or Frame Relay lines to individual stores was disproportionately high and was exacerbated by the requirement for up-front capital for hardware investments.

Today, however, connections to even the smallest offices or outlets cost a fraction of what leased lines cost and that has enabled retail stores and outlets to become integrated into the overall IT infrastructure. This has allowed retailers to take advantage of IT systems to become much more customer centric by gaining near real-time information from stores, employees, supply chains, and customers. A pervasive, secure wireless platform frees this information from the confines of desktop computers and allows this information to be used anywhere and anytime to improve the customer experience, improve store performance, reduce inventory shortages, and transform how retail enterprises conduct operations.

Benefits of Cisco Unified Wireless Network for Retail Enterprises

Retail enterprises are deploying the Cisco Unified Wireless Network pervasively throughout the organization as a critical component of the intelligent retail network architecture. Cisco Unified Wireless Network Mobility Services are the glue between business applications and the wireless infrastructure, allowing existing and new business applications to benefit from the immediacy of connections and collaboration delivered by mobility.

To improve operations and customer satisfaction, retail enterprises are going beyond simple hotspot or point wireless deployments, and moving to pervasive deployments. This allows Wireless LAN Mobility Services to create secure, anytime, anywhere access to critical business resources. With an infrastructure designed to support Wireless LAN Mobility Services, retail enterprises can:

• Enhance the shopping experience—Wireless-enabled kiosks can display new product promotions and be easily moved as stores are reconfigured.
• Engage customers—Retailers can allow online shopping or product information look up for customers carrying Wi-Fi enabled smart phones.
• Boost productivity—Retailers can connect associates with managers in real time through voice over Wi-Fi to approve store credits, offer rain checks, or update pricing without noisy overhead paging.
• Improve customer satisfaction—Retailers can enable line busting to move customers through check out faster with mobile point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
• Protect brand image and assets—Retailers can track high-value items using RFID to decrease loss
• Improve reaction time to market shifts—Retailers can generate alerts on inventory levels of high-profit or seasonal items to store managers via integration with POS systems.

Integration with retail applications, store displays, and new mobile devices create many opportunities for improved profitability and brand loyalty. With a pervasive wireless LAN, vendors, customers, and employees can significantly improve the retail experience.

(5) Advanced Comparative Statistics for U.S. based on 1997 NAICs, 2002 U.S. Economic Census

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