In this section of the report, we focus on technology advances and things to consider when making investment decisions.
“Learn to crawl and walk before you try to run” is something we frequently advise our retail clients. That advice is particularly helpful when we are working with them on roadmaps for harnessing the RFID data produced in their stores and supply chains. This report will outline some smart tactics at each stage of the progression from decision making processes that rely heavily on human input to those that capitalize on advances in automation and artificial intelligence.
Information Overload
It has long been established that RFID provides retailers with significant operational benefits. Our retail clients are moving beyond the core foundational capabilities and are eager to fully capitalize on the new forms of data their RFID systems are generating. This is key to extracting every last dollar of ROI. Whereas their initial focus may have been on reactive measures, like tackling out-of-stocks or allocating into Shrink, our clients are now focused on using data proactively to change what they sell and how they sell it.
We typically devote attention at the outset to providing our clients’ national Store Operations teams (and the individual stores themselves) with good KPIs and dashboards to help them remotely monitor the condition and performance of each store, district and region. Are there executional issues? Are they elevating product availability? Which stores or which employees might need re-training? Does the communication program for the entire fleet of stores need to be tweaked?
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