Empowered Stores leverage technology such as instant voice communications,
service mobility, and managed services for RFID systems to give more control
to the customer at the purchase point of decision, resulting in a more satisfying
shopping experience, increased customer loyalty and lower service costs.
Syntegra, the $1 billion business transformation and change management subsidiary
of BT Group, today announced it is joining forces with key retail industry
firms such as Aberdeen Group, Microsoft, Vocera and VI Agents to create and
deliver powerful new solutions and services that are designed specifically
to maximize store performance for retailers.
This effort to provide retailers with quick and easy information exchange
and better customer service capabilities through network retailing solutions
such as instant voice communications, service mobility, and managed services
for RFID systems is part of a powerful new retail business concept known as
the Empowered Store.
Aberdeen Group, an IT market research leader, is leading the Empowered Store
methodology and pulling together a group of market leading retail companies
to form a consortium to drive the new retail business model. The Empowered
Store concept is predicated on the fact that growth for retailers accelerates
when they maximize the performance of existing stores. This acceleration in
growth requires the entire retail ecosystem to leverage and integrate evolving
store technology and processes to better serve the Empowered Customer.
One example of the Empowered Store occurs when sales associates use in-store
wireless technology to be more responsive to customer requests -- quickly
contacting product experts to answer merchandise questions and suppliers to
check inventory levels, right from the sales floor during the sales transaction.
This results in better customer service, more efficient stores operations,
and improved inventory control.
Stan Elbaum, Aberdeen’s VP of Strategic Research, notes: “Today’s demanding
customer is increasingly fickle, fast-moving and more and more difficult to
retain. Via the Internet and other resources, the customer can quickly explore
and value product alternatives, and become better informed than virtually
all of the employees attempting to service them. Retailers will have to evolve
toward Empowered Stores that leverage technology and process in order to create
an environment where the customer keeps coming back. Syntegra is the kind
of agent for store change that retailers need to succeed.”
“Retailers will give more and more control to the customer at the purchase
point of decision - through self-service opportunities, empowered sales associates
and suppliers and easily accessible back office systems,” said Chris Turnquist,
Retail and Manufacturing VP, Syntegra. “This will lead to more loyal customers
and ultimately will lower the cost to serve them.”
Customer Empowerment extends the value from the retailer to the customer
by providing additional access, content, education and commerce to wherever
the customer is located.
“Based on our in-depth industry and consumer research, we have come to the
conclusion that the demands of the digitally-enabled consumer will cause some
dramatic changes to the dynamics of retailing,” said Brian Scott, general
manager of Microsoft’s Retail & Hospitality Industry Solutions Group.
“The Empowered Store concept is consistent with Microsoft’s views and properly
acknowledges that one of the retailer’s keys to success is to leverage the
familiar technologies—such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants
and other wireless devices—already in the consumer’s hands in order to create
a compelling and fulfilling shopping experience.”
Sales Associate Empowerment links store associates to resources and increases
their effectiveness in more diligently serving the customer.
“In-store wireless communications systems instantly connect staff, managers,
and customers to quickly provide the information needed,” said Brent Lang,
vice president of Marketing, Vocera Communications. “Being able to instantly
locate product information or speak to a subject specialist will increase
the value a retail employee brings to the in-store selling process.”
Supplier Empowerment shifts access, content, inventory and responsibility
from the retailer to the supplier in order to allow the supplier to more effectively
manage their demand chain and increase insight into product lifecycles.
“Retailers and their suppliers are working to better understand how the emerging
AutoID standards and RFID technologies1 will impact stores and their supply
chains in order to best serve the consumer, increase operating margins, and
more effectively scale the business with less capital,” said Tim Shideler,
VP Marketing and Sales, VI Agents, http://www.viagents.com. “Syntegra is working
with its parent company BT and VI Agents to offer an AutoID managed service
to help retailers and their suppliers have better visibility into and control
of their supply chains as well as take the cost and complexity out of an AutoID/RFID-enabled
supply chain.”
“The world of retail has a stark metric. Your customers either come back
or they don’t,” added Turnquist. “The bottom line measurement of the Empowered
Store is a growing stream of return customers.”
About Syntegra
Syntegra is part of BT Group. It plays a key role in BT's Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) strategy as its expert in business transformation
and change management.
Syntegra employs more than 5,000 business and technical professionals worldwide
and in the financial year ending March 2003 reported revenues of around $1
billion.
Syntegra helps organizations transform the way that they operate by applying
business knowledge and technology to make possible new and better ways of
working.
Its primary activity is the provision of consultancy and systems integration
services including business consultancy, complex program management and custom
systems design, development and operation.
To complement its own specialization Syntegra, where needed, is able to call
upon skill and expertise from other parts of BT.
For more information about the Empowered Store visit: http://www.syntegra.com/us/retail/.
About Aberdeen
Founded in 1988, Aberdeen Group, an IT market research leader, continues
to distinguish itself in a rapidly changing industry. Over the course of the
last 18 months, Aberdeen has been introducing a variety of new products and
services designed to meet the needs of existing and new markets. Aberdeen's
web site (www.aberdeen.com) is one of the industry leaders in terms of content
and visitor traffic.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Aberdeen has research and consulting
divisions in Palo Alto, California, and Fort Collins, Colorado.
1 - AutoID (Automatic Identification) Standards and RFID (Radio Frequency
Identification) Technologies are emerging technologies using radio frequency
barcodes to streamline the supply chain process.
