Rebecca Gibson |
Visibility platforms can help retailers to improve the productivity of their assets, inventory and employees, and thereby enhance the customer experience, according to a new TechBrief from analyst firm IDC.
The Visibility Solutions for the Retail Enterprise TechBrief found that visibility platforms enable retailers to optimise resources and improve the efficiency of processes like inventory, returns and task management across their stores, warehouses and offices. This allows retailers to save on human resources and other assets, while increasing their profitability and inventory availability and visibility. Ultimately, this allows them to offer the best possible customer experience.
According to the report, 80% of retailers have a specific budget allocated for increasing enterprise-wide visibility, and 60% already have a visibility platform in place. However, the average adoption rate for these platforms in key use case areas is only 15-30%.
“The risk of not implementing visibility platforms in retail is high,” said Leslie Hand, vice president of IDC Retail Insights. “Retailers consider visibility a strategic ingredient toward digitally transforming the consumer experience, making sure that inventory is in the right place at the right time, and that consumer and employee processes are as productive, efficient, and seamless as possible. At a time when the ability to execute efficiently to manage basic operational processes and to assist consumers to find and buy products more efficiently literally makes or breaks consumer relationships, retailers cannot afford to wait any longer to deploy visibility solutions.”