Here are the three must-have strategies to help you adopt omni-channel retailing:

1. Customer-centric Approach

Building a sustainable relationship with customers is key to achieving omni-channel success. Retailers need to provide seamless access across web, mobile, and store channels for customers and convert these into richer engagement. To achieve this, retailers need to implement:

Personalized campaigns and promotions: Mere personalization is not a good-to-have strategy anymore; Relevance is the key to winning customer loyalty. To design and run personalized and relevant campaigns, retailers need to integrate structured and unstructured data, use advanced analytics to identify shopping preferences and buying behaviour. The predictive analytical capabilities enable retailers to launch personalized campaigns and promotions, resulting in improved loyalties.

Location-based customer engagement: New technologies such as NFC and iBeacon enable retailers to personalize customer engagement based on proximity. It allows advertisers to embed customer preferences and information with real-time context and send relevant notifications. Thus, location-based marketing connects the digital and physical marketing channels, and helps in deeply engaging mobile shoppers.

Social engagement: According to Hubspot, 71% consumers are likely to make a purchase decision based on social media referrals and as per SproutSocial 74% shoppers rely on social media networks to make purchase decisions. Social media marketing should be an integral part of retailers’ marketing strategy today. It provides an extensive platform to expand reach, connect with target audiences, and explore exponential growth. In addition to this, engaging with customers through social media channels not only provides an opportunity for social commerce, but also helps gain customer insights, by integrating customers’ social interactions.

Care everywhere: Retailers must care for customers across their journey – before shopping, during shopping, and post shopping through modern ways such as shopping assistance, one-touch support, recommendations, post-sales service, 24/7 helpdesk, and call centre support.

It is critical for retailers to stand out in the cluttered marketplace by effectively reaching out and engaging with their target audiences, while optimizing returns.

2. Unified Commerce Platforms

A survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, Ecommerce Europe and Ecommerce Foundation, in partnership with Demandware early this year, indicates that a high percentage of respondents are in favour of a unified commerce platform. Out of approximately 300 U.S., Australian, and European retail business executives, 53% of respondents said that they were going to deploy a unified commerce platform, an increase of 50% from last year. Adopting the right technology platforms can help transform the business model, and establish a centralized system that enables consistent service delivery across channels. Leading unified commerce platforms offer highly scalable and integrated IT solutions from engagement to fulfilment. The flexible architecture of these platforms supports the integration of multiple data sources and augments surrounding technologies such as e-Commerce, mobility, and analytics. The major advantages of adopting unified commerce platforms are:

Single view of customers across channels: Provides 360 degree view of customers regardless of the channels that helps enhance analytical capabilities, augment actionable insights, and offer personalized experience.

Inventory visibility across channels: Provides real-time and holistic view of inventory, optimizing operations, and reducing out-of-stock scenarios.

Optimized cross-channel order management: The integrated order management system enables seamless order flow across channels.

Enhanced order fulfilment capabilities: These platforms can be easily extended to fulfil orders through multiple ways, like home deliveries, click and collect, and temporary pickup locations.

Integrations with social media and online marketplaces: These platforms are flexible to integrate with social media and online marketplaces, providing complete visibility into order and inventory data.

Scalability: The unified commerce platforms are highly scalable in nature and supports business growth seamlessly.

3. Agile Work Environment

It is not enough to unify systems and build comprehensive consumer database spanning web, mobile, and store. To maximize potential, retailers need to eliminate the distinction between business units and reorganize team structures. For example, target and incentives should be re-designed to account for overall sales, than just measuring channel-specific performance. Agile work environment is about bringing people and processes in sync with technology to find the most appropriate and effective way of working collaboratively. To realize omni-channel imperative, businesses need to eliminate siloed work culture amongst channel-specific teams by creating cross-functional teams based on shared company goals.

Preparing for the Future of Retail

Achieving omni-channel excellence requires defining clear objectives and extensive executional, tactical, and strategic capabilities. Retailers who move away from siloed and legacy systems to modern unified solutions, offering highly-scalable unified platforms, have great potential to successfully adopt omni-channel strategies. Such platforms ensure successful integration of various touch points and offer great potential to retailers to gain competitive advantage.

Having said that, collaborating with strategic implementation partners with relevant industry-domain knowledge and experience will allow leveraging the partner’s expertise in implementing best-fit solutions and providing omni-channel retail services.

Compartmentalizing data: Too many marketers separate mobile, social and desktop strategies just like they do with TV, outdoor and print. People engage with multiple channels (sometimes even simultaneously) throughout the day, so why are marketers isolating data in siloed buckets?

When digital data is integrated and used to inform big picture, multi-channel decisions around reach, frequency and even creative strategy, its value increases exponentially.

Static media planning: The days of creating a stagnant media plan at the beginning of the month will soon be over. With access to dynamic, cross-channel insight, creative and media strategies can and should be optimized in real-time, allowing brands to take full advantage of “right time, right place, right message.”

Manual processes: We conduct online stock trades and make dinner reservations online. Yet, it takes dozens of faxes and multiple phone calls and meetings just to make a single ad buy. Astonishing.

It’s far time for marketers to embrace “mechanization.” Mechanization means that machines replace manual planning and buying processes (including multi-page RFPs and insertion orders) that waste time and money. Big efficiencies will be realized as more marketers embrace programmatic ad buying technologies to execute campaigns.

The event was attended by 150 people, including RAI members and academic partners.
STOrai presents quotable quotes and glimpses:

“South India is the birthplace of both – retail and modern retail in India. It has 25% of the population of the country but 30% of the retail turnover” – said Bijou Kurien during his Key Note Address.  “South India has built strong vibrant brands – and malls recognize that they need local and regional brands as much as they need their national counterparts”, he added.

– Bijou Kurien

“Family owned businesses are an extension of the family environment for our staff” said M. Banumathi, Head Naidu Hall, Kovai, during the panel discussion on the Dynamics of Family owned businesses.  Her co-panelist, T.Shantakumar, MD, Kirtilals said “Professionals have a role to play as family owned businesses grow. However, the key to success for both sides is to ensure that the professionals are able to align with family culture and business values”.
Read More Here: http://goo.gl/f3flrQ

The panel on “The Art and Science of retailing” provided rich insights.
K.R. Nagarajan, Founder & MD, Ramraj Cotton spoke about his journey of converting the traditional ‘veshti’  into ‘occasion wear’ – something to be worn with pride and dignity , which resulted in a business which today spans 59 stores.  “The power of white is in its purity.  Customers who wear pristine white clothes for 21 days, find themselves unable to revert to colored clothes.  But white does not mean simple – we sell 2500 designs of dhotis – because customer tastes change from Kochi to Kovai to Kumbakonam”.
Read more here: http://goo.gl/WQb3KL

Nigam Patel, Director, Prozone CSC spoke about how tier 2 cities in India are attractive mall destinations.

“Managing a mall is a long term play – it needs patience.  We’ve also learnt that we need a mix of local and national retailers”.

His co-panelist, Girish Pande, COO, Fun Cinemas, concurred – “We’ve built malls in 9 tier 2 cities and we find these markets to be vibrant. Kovai Fun Cinemas sees 100,000 people per month, one of the highest in India.”

Read more here: http://goo.gl/vKbtyA

P Subramaniam, Consultant, RmKV Silks, spoke about the learning process they went through while deciding to move from high street to malls.

“Inspite of being a strong brand in Chennai and Tirunelveli the decision to set up a store in Brookefields mall in Kovai was taken after much debate – and was driven as much by market potential as by the lack of high street properties”.

Read more here: http://goo.gl/vKbtyA

The panel on multi-channel retail pointed out that for regional retailers – going online, or being present on social media is a non-negotiable.

“You either leverage technology or go out of business” – was how M. Ramakrishnan, MD, Thulasi Pharmacy  put it .

Read More Here: http://goo.gl/KTZET6

Delegate feedback showed that RAI’s use of bi-lingual panel discussions met with much appreciation, something we intend to continue in future events in the South.

Panel Discussion on Creating Channel Supremacy the Multichannel Way had experts from retail chains in South India brainstorming & discussing the trends on retail industry, especially in the context of multichannel retail.

Panelists in this session were:

Suraj Shantakumar, Director Business Strategy, Kirtilals

Sunil Sanklecha, MD, Nuts & Spices

M. Ramakrishnan, MD, Thulasi Pharmacy

Zarook Shah, Director, The Grand Mall

Moderator: Sastry Subrahmanya, Director, PWC

This is what the panelists had to say:

Question: What is your view on multi-channel?

Suraj Shantakumar, Director Business Strategy, Kirtilals

“Multi channel maturity is a function of business maturity.”

•Our business is about high value diamonds and gold.  Our key value proposition is personalized service – which social media to an  extent excludes.

•Our definition of multi channel includes : Direct to home for personalized  shopping; roadshows and exhibitions for the store catchment.

•We’ve developed  Special design lounges –  an IPAD app – which customers can use to BYOJ (Build Your Own Jewelry)

•This App ‘aggregates’ range across all stores – and creates an ‘endless aisle’ for customers.

• We are present online and on social media but these are for ‘display ‘ purposes.

M. Ramakrishnan, MD, Thulasi Pharmacy

“Multi Channel for us is events which increase customer engagement.” 

•We run a chain of 39 pharmacy stores all over Tamil Nadu.

•We use health camps as a way to engage with the catchment.  Strategic PR exercises.

•We are present online – but to give information, we do not have an e-commerce enabled website as yet.

•Since our Target Audience are usually above 60 our multi channel and technology choices reflect that.

•Home delivery / prescription reminder services / email marketing are our version of “multi channel”

•Because we deal with health and because our target audience is older;  customers have concerns on privacy and security of online transactions.

•We have found that loyalty programs based on purchase patterns have met with some resistance – but discount based programs have been successful.

•Social media is a good channel for the neutraceutical side of the business. In addition, touch-screens in-store help to educate about usage / side effects of drugs.

Question: How is the customer expectation influence retailers choice of channel?

Zarook Shah, Director, The Grand Mall

•We run a mall in Chennai – we are a neighborhood mall, and are in the shadow of Phoenix Market City who are much larger than us.

•In addition, we also have an analytics / Ux company (Ux = User eXperience)

•Customers are jumping online at the first opportunity – so retailers have to think multichannel.

•Use interactive technology to present SKUs and range not available in store – using mobile technology.

Sunil Sanklecha, MD, Nuts & Spices 

•We are a chain of gourmet food stores.  Our Retail stores are a channel for the family business of dry fruit.

•23 stores in Tamil Nadu. Present online and on social media

•Created the online store to cater to customers who had moved outside the state.

•Most online retailers focus on price discounting as a way to drive traffic.  The trade-off is price v/s experience.  Online channels cannot provide the same experiential feel.

•Depending on which markets and customer segment – most retailers need both. It’s not an “either / or” thought process.

Online channels appeal to the “left” brain, brick and mortar to the “right” brain. One is quantitative and price based – the other is experiential. – Sastry Subrahmanya, Director, PWC (Moderator)

Zarook Shah, Director, The Grand Mall

•As a neighbourhood mall we have found social media far more useful than mainline print / media advertising.

•Email marketing and aggregating offers of all our tenant retailers  has helped us personalize our offering to the catchment.

Audience Question: How much should you spend on online advertising ? 

•We spend 2 to 3% of turnover on advertising. Of that about 20% is for online advertising.  (Sunil Sanklecha – Nuts ‘n’ Spices)

•We’ve found that a combination of social media / flyers works better than a radio / print media mix (Zarook Shah – Grand Mall).

•Our industry is regulated. We use PR – not advertising. We run a ‘handwriting’ contest which covers 100,000 children and helps us connect with the community.  Our advertising budget is miniscule – 0.2% of turnover.  (M. Ramakrishnan, MD, Thulasi Pharmacy )

•Online advertising is nascent for jewelry industry, we use a traditional ad budget – mostly in print and hoardings. (Suraj Shantakumar, Director Business Strategy, Kirtilals)

Summary:

All brands need an online presence to be able relevant to the customer.  – Zarook Shah, Director, The Grand Mall

When you go online is a function of investments and bandwidth – Sunil Sanklecha, MD, Nuts & Spices

If you can’t use technology – be prepared to go out of business – M. Ramakrishnan, MD, Thulasi Pharmacy

Keeping customer experience consistent across channels is key.  – Suraj Shantakumar, Director Business Strategy, Kirtilals

About the Study

• The Retail Operations Benchmarking and Excellence Survey (ROBES) focuses on the state of multichannel retail in India.

• Consumers have increasingly taken to e-commerce, and retailers in India have responded by gearing up to run this emerging business model in tandem with their physical stores. This report looked at developments in this area to gauge the maturity of current practices and to identify best-in-class KPIs and processes.

• The report considers more than 40 Indian retail brands across four segments. It highlights the current state of affairs, the best practices to be pursued, and the improvement opportunities available to retailers

Focus Areas of the Study

Methodology

The research sample included senior management (CEOs, MDs), COOs or heads of operations, and directors.

A total of 37 participants with 44 retail brands between them provided over 1,200 data points across six functional areas: Organization, Operations, Customer Experience, Marketing, Technology, and Finance.

The survey was conducted across four broad retail segments – Fashion (apparel, footwear, and accessories), CDIT (consumer durables and IT), Department Stores, and Other Retailers (pharmacy, books, music and gifts, and food and grocery)

The survey also included interviews with e-tailers across the Fashion, CDIT, and Food segments to capture their views and some of their best practices.

Key  Take Aways

Brick-and-mortar retailers have begun their multichannel journey in earnest. For most, non-store revenue is currently less than 3 percent. This is indicative of a high potential for growth.

The primary objective for multichannel initiatives is geographical expansion (21 percent of respondents) and revenue enhancement (18 percent), which is likely to be driven by the online marketplace as a growth channel. However, with an eye on improving customer experience (21 percent), retailers have a strong focus on their own ecommerce website.

With ‘showrooming’ affecting segments such as CDIT and mobile phones (who were early adopters of multichannel) and faced with customers who straddle shopping channels with ease, most retailers are making concerted efforts to re-invent themselves. They plan on doing this by understanding the non-store customer, offering a seamless experience, and revamping delivery and payment mechanisms.

Buoyed by growth rates of more than 15 percent, large retailers are leveraging non-store channels to reach tier-2 and tier-3 cities and farther flung areas where they do not have a brick-and-mortar presence.

Smaller players view this as an opportunity to compete on a more level playing field with chain stores: the non-store channel has led to a democratization of brands.

Retailers are increasingly looking to create specialized structures to cater to non-store channels. However, intra-organizational collaboration remains a big challenge. Collaboration between store and non-store channels is also a key challenge – some retailers (21 percent) are taking steps to incentivize cross-channel collaboration.

Operational hurdles remain. Most retailers are still finding their feet in terms of managing their assortment, order management, inventory, delivery, and payment systems. It is encouraging to see CEOs and COOs leading multichannel initiatives in 70 percent of the retailers who we resurveyed.

The Fashion and CDIT segments have been highly receptive to the online marketplace. There is a lot of commoditization and brand clutter in this space. Any kind of differentiation is yet to evolve.

Physical stores continue to enjoy higher loyalty from customers as compared with non-store channels. A key reason for this is the lack of a unified CRM program across channels. Non-store channels have demonstrated around 30 percent higher returns compared with physical stores.