Overcoming system shock

This month, Furniture News explores the opportunities and challenges multichannel retailers face when upgrading their retail management system to meet modern demand …

It’s official – bricks work better when supported by clicks. Going multichannel gives furniture retailers access to new avenues of opportunity – yet it also adds layers of complexity to a business, and any attempts to scale up (and out) into the digital space are likely to falter without the presence of a robust IT platform to manage the details and join the dots.

From inventory management and order processing to ecommerce, PoS and resources for sales staff, retail management systems promise to integrate the numerous tasks involved in running a multichannel retail business, ensuring accuracy, transparency and insight across both in-store and online operations.

But what happens when that system starts feeling a little bit long in the tooth, and the technology that once enabled growth begins to create frustration?

In line with changing customer behaviour, retail management platforms have evolved a great deal in recent years, so a business may find that its current set-up simply isn’t up to scratch.

This month, we’re exploring how retailers can go about selecting a new provider, and the opportunities – and pitfalls – of switching over. Most of us have experienced difficulties when moving from one telecoms, insurance or energy provider to another –the pressure is all the more intense when a business’ future is dependent on a successful outcome.

For this month’s retail technology feature, we asked some of the sector’s leading tech providers to share their thoughts. They would all concur that an upgrade can make a business faster, more productive and more profitable – but also that the undertaking requires careful consideration and planning.

Thanks to this month’s feedback panel for their feedback: Wayne Robbins, director, Iconography; Sarah Friswell, CEO, Red Ant; and Duncan Fergusson, MD, Sci-Net Business Solutions.

HOW HAS RETAIL MANAGEMENT AND ECOMMERCE SOFTWARE EVOLVED?

Duncan Fergusson: We’ve found that retail management and ecommerce software have undergone significant evolution in recent years, driven by technological advancements and changes in consumer behaviour. In particular, we’ve seen the rise of omnichannel retailing – so deep integration between ecommerce, marketplaces, PoS, back office and any thirdparty warehouse is essential.

Our ERP>Retail software has evolved to provide or integrate with multiple channels, including traditional brick-and-mortar stores, online marketplaces, social media platforms and mobile apps. This allows retailers to create a seamless shopping experience for customers across different touchpoints, so customers can now basically shop as they go, 24/7. It’s all about giving the customer choice and a great journey.

Sarah Friswell: Since the pandemic accelerated ecommerce, retailers have been employing cross-channel retail strategies to reach customers both online and in physical stores –but with technology advances, and tech-savvy customers and their expectations continually driving change in retail, only the most consistent, personalised customer experiences will win favour. Today’s shoppers might pivot from social media to the website, to the store and back to the app to checkout.

Retailers must enable a seamless journey between all channels, enabling customers to complete transactions rapidly whenever they’re inspired to make a purchase. It’s no longer an option to have siloed data sitting in disparate locations – omnichannel reigns supreme.

Where omnichannel platforms have been in existence for some years, it’s now imperative for retailers to adopt this strategy, which integrates clients’ existing technology with innovative solutions, unifying the tools, content and insights store associates need to provide outstanding customer experiences, in-store or online.

Building a clienteling app that unifies this data will empower store associates to guide customers through the browsing and buying experience with relevant recommendations that will capture sales and enable them to cross- and upsell. With data-driven insight into the customer’s activity, brands can improve customer service and loyalty, creating trusted allies of store associates and setting them up for new levels of success.

Wayne Robbins: We now provide a unified platform, called OMNIS. This is a single piece of software that provides ecommerce, EPoS, and a suit of head office and retail operations functionality – covering back office aspects like purchase ordering, warehouse management, delivery, returns, repairs and CRM, and generating key business and KPI reports.

We believe OMNIS is unique in the market, and offers a large number of tangible operational efficiency benefits for retailers. To distil these down to a couple of points in terms of operational efficiency, using OMNIS means: smaller teams can do more; creating and maintaining a complex product catalogue is easier; and collating customer special orders and placing orders with suppliers is easier, as all your orders are there in real time. It all adds up to better access to key information, optimised and connected workflows, fewer mistakes and increased accuracy.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON REASONS RETAILERS COME TO YOU LOOKING FOR A NEW SYSTEM?

Duncan Fergusson: Retailers look for a new system for various reasons, but most commonly, they do so to overcome the limitations of their current system. For example, they may have experienced a period of growth and need a system that can scale with their business, or their existing system is outdated and lacks key features and flexibility, hindering their ability to grow and compete with other businesses. A new system should bring efficiencies and automations as well as far greater integrations, enabling businesses to give a much better customer journey, upsell, and potentially open in new marketplaces and enhance existing channels.

Sarah Friswell: Retailers realise they need to invest in the right tech to update their retail operations for modern digital retailing. If they have relied heavily on in-store experience, this means repositioning themselves to have a single view of customers across all platforms and allow a checkout process which is flexible enough to allow them to complete sales wherever they choose. Consumers’ furniture-buying needs have changed, and customers are favouring a hybrid shopping approach, and to shop in ways that fit in with their lifestyles.

In particular, brands approach Red Ant as they are looking to personalise the process and speed up transactions and service, because it can all be done on one platform. RetailOS gives the store associates more time to sell rather than do admin, and has an industry-leading ROI. Clienteling has become key to delivering improved customer engagement.

Retailers are typically looking for a system which is easy to use – if an app can’t be adopted widely across the retail business, it won’t be fit for purpose. If the app requires minimal training, store associates are able to simply pick it up and start using it with a simple training manual and some top tips for use. It must be flexible enough to cope with the demands of a modern retail business with features that are ready for deployment, and future-proofed for a long-term development roadmap.

Wayne Robbins: Retailers who currently work with an integration between their ecommerce site and a legacy retail management system contend with many issues on a day-to-day basis.

It is retailers with this experience and regular ‘integration issues’ who are interested in what we are doing.

Often we see other vendors talking about ‘seamless integrations’ between their core retail management system and their bolted-on ecommerce system. This, in our view, is not helpful for retailers looking to improve their software – as it attempts to muddy the waters. Integrations are essentially ‘digital seams’, plain and simple. Talk of ‘seamless integrations’ is marketing flannel. Which is why we built a unified commerce platform – with one database underpinning ecommerce, EPoS, CRM and the retail management/operations functionality.

Integrations can throw up many and varied issues – things like inaccurate stock and lead time being displayed online, where that data is being pulled from another system and they are not truly in sync. Or the need to manage aspect of the product catalogue in different ways in different places – a consequence of web products needing more information to sell online than legacy systems often cater for. These are the sort of things retailers are interested in addressing to help improve their business.

WHAT ARE THE KEY CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN SWITCHING FROM ONE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER, AND HOW DO YOU OVERCOME THEM?

Duncan Fergusson: Switching from one system to another can be a complex and challenging process. Three of the key challenges clients have in making a switch include:

1. Data migration. Retailers may have a large amount of data stored in their existing system, such as customer information, order histories and product data. Migrating this data to a new system can be a challenging and timeconsuming process. We help clients through this and their data cleansing by giving them the training, tools and support to achieve it.

2. Change management and staff training. Switching to a new system often requires change management and process improvements. Staff members need to learn new processes and workflows, as well as a new system. This can be a significant challenge. Managing this change is an important part of the project, and at Sci-Net we help our clients with implementation.

3. User Acceptance Testing (UAT). This is a critical aspect of the process and implementation – there is no such thing as too much user acceptance testing. We communicate to the clients how important this is, and work with them to ensure there is enough time in the project plan for this, and to ensure they have the resources and scripts in place to achieve it. Doing UAT properly ensures: your team members know what they are doing and how to use the system, while giving them hands-on training at the same time; the system works as designed with no errors or issues; that the risk is taken out of the project before it goes live; that everyone is confident in the system and processes; and that the go-live process is relatively stress-free and smooth.

We help and support our clients to overcome these challenges by working with them from the very beginning, and at every step of the project. Our project managers help to carefully plan and prepare for these challenges, ensuring that the switch is well organised and on schedule, while mitigating any risks or issues that arise during the process. We have a robust process to thoroughly test the new system before making the switch, to ensure it functions properly, meets the client’s business needs, and ensures staff are adequately trained.

Sarah Friswell: Personalisation is only made possible with the right data quality and integration, so retailers must take a data-first approach. This means having a clear data strategy which aligns to business goals, shared with stakeholders business wide. Data must be compliant, high quality and integrated with all systems to maximise the potential from any retail tech investment.

Integration is key – it’s vital to check all infrastructure is connected, and sharing data sources to provide a single source of truth, otherwise the transformation will not deliver the results retailers are looking for. For it to be effective, retailers must harness data from multiple sources – legacy, third party and new –into one platform, and ensure it’s embedded into the whole business.

Wayne Robbins: Without doubt, the key challenge is data – customer and order data (current and historical), and also product information, especially for complex made-toorder products where there are options/priceaffecting variables to content with.

We have a skilled team to work with clients and help export and re-purpose data from legacy systems.

WHAT DOES YOUR ONBOARDING PROCESS LOOK LIKE?

Duncan Fergusson: Our onboarding process can vary depending on the system and the client’s specific needs, and as a Microsoft partner, we have stringent guidelines to adhere to. However, these are the typical steps:

1. The first step is a discovery and analysis phase, working closely with the client, where we run on-site workshops to understand their processes, business needs, requirements, and any gaps in our system capabilities. We document this in a workshop write-up that both sides comment on until completion and sign off. This is done department by department and is, in essence, written documentation of what is agreed upon to be delivered as part of the implementation and new system.

2. Design and Development. Once we understand the client’s needs, we can begin configuring and setting up the new system, and developing any agreed-upon customisations.

3. As the system is being set up, we can carry out show and tells, providing training and support to help the client’s project team members learn how to use the system effectively from the beginning and throughout the project.

4. Once the system is set up, we will typically perform testing and validation to ensure that the system functions properly and meets the client’s requirements. This is before we hand it over to the client for user acceptance testing.

5. Go-live is carefully planned and agreed, and support is then provided during the go-live period to ensure a smooth transition, and we will provide ongoing support. A final quality audit will be conducted after the launch, before handing the client over to our support team.

Sarah Friswell: Working in close partnership with our clients is key to our success, and our agile business approach ensures great teamwork and excellent results. With everything lined up for success, the time from starting to finishing up and having a working pilot can be achieved within as little as three months.

By ensuring that the right decision-makers from across the retail business are involved from the outset, we can fully understand their challenges and objectives. Engaging with the people who will actually be using the technology is vital in delivering an effective solution for store associates as well as customers.

The first stage is to understand their data estate (data and systems), which is essential to setting mutual objectives, and from here we start to discuss what is possible for this retailer, and some measurable objectives and metrics for success. Before we move into development, we agree the scope and terms of success.

The second critical factor is to make sure we can get all their data into the technology and link up all of their data points so that we can work out the core customer journey. We’ll then design a solution which will work for this particular retailer, taking into account external factors such as the rapidly changing needs of customers in this specific industry.

Red Ant’s hybrid-agile delivery is split into six specific phases – define, develop, user acceptance testing (UAT), pilot, phase 2, and rollout. But our delivery doesn’t stop there. Following full roll-out, the team will continue to collaborate and support the product to review ongoing user feedback, prioritise the product backlog, gain further insight into product performance and identify potential future development, with the Red Ant service desk providing full support for any live issues.

Wayne Robbins: We are very process driven. We have an experienced team who take detailed design briefs (for ecommerce) and produce exacting specifications of the OMNIS software we deliver for new clients. There is of course a significant amount of testing and training ahead of going live, and thereafter a dedicated account manager to support a new client and build the relationship.

Has your old retail system seen better days?

by Visit iconography.co.uk/omnis