During times of crisis, digital capabilities become key to business survival, LS Retail CTO Dadi Karason writes in the new PYMNTS eBook, “What’s Your Plan? Payments Strategies for a Strong 2022 Finish.”
The war in Ukraine, skyrocketing utility prices, supply chain issues, growing inflation and decreased customer spending make this a challenging juncture.
Businesses will be tempted to stand still and avoid investing in new technology — but this is exactly when they cannot afford to pause. It’s during times of crisis and increased competition that a business’s digital capabilities become key to its ability to survive and thrive.
Self-Service Technology
Technology like self-checkout registers in retail stores, ordering kiosks in restaurants and check-in machines in hotels and airports all streamline the consumer experience. Online booking services make (or cancel) appointments, for example, with a beautician or car mechanic. ScanPayGo mobile apps that customers can use to scan items in-store and pay for them on their phones. Consumers love the convenience and autonomy they get from contactless and self-service technologies. For retail businesses, it shouldn’t be a question of whether they will implement self-service tech but of when. In times of labor shortages, these technologies can allow businesses to serve more customers faster.
At LS Retail, we have been developing retail platforms for three decades — and we believe that the point of sale of tomorrow will be increasingly unattended.
Intelligent Insights
As supply chain challenges become more frequent and sales patterns continue to shift quickly and unpredictably, retailers need to be able to analyze their data and spot opportunities. There are many business intelligence solutions, but they are not all equal.
Businesses need technology that does the heavy lifting, transforming disconnected data into information and suggesting the best course of action based on the business’s goals:
What items require immediate action?
Who should I target with my marketing actions?
What items should I reorder to minimize overstock?
To which locations should I distribute different products, and when?
These are just some of the questions that intelligent software should be able to answer to help businesses navigate uncertainty.
Unified Commerce Platforms
In times of crisis, the last thing businesses want to worry about is getting a new platform to run their business. It’s too expensive, they say — but that’s just the tendency to trust past investments, which economists call the “sunk cost fallacy.” What is expensive is having no visibility of one’s costs, customers and data. And when a company is running on many disconnected pieces of software, it’s hard to spot waste, risk or opportunity before it’s too late.
Unified commerce is a centralized platform that connects all data and sales channels in real time. It is the future of business. Companies get a complete view of their entire operation, of every instance their customers interact with them and can make decisions based on timely, complete, and reliable information.
Agility and speed of action are key to surviving volatile times. Investing in the right technology has never been as vital to business survival.
