Riverbed Retail Digital Transformation Survey Results: The Next Three Years Will Be Critical for the Development of Physical Stores

The retail industry was born along with human civilization. When people knew about bartering, the retail industry already existed. In the study of the history of the retail industry, the three revolutions summarized by Western economists include department stores, chain stores and supermarkets. In recent years, the concept of the fourth retail revolution has gradually emerged. In China, the "new retail" spawned by this has become the hottest business term nowadays, and it is no longer a trend or concept, but a real "present tense". The past 2017 is even called the "first year of new retail".

The emergence of the "new retail" format is having a significant impact on the traditional physical retail industry, and the purchasing behavior of modern consumers is also changing dramatically. According to the "China New Retail White Paper" published by Nielsen, online shoppers value "high-quality products" and "special offers", and care whether the goods are good quality and cheap, while offline consumers focus on service and experience. Therefore, the next three years will be an important period for determining the fate of the physical retail industry not only in China, but also in the world. Where is the way out for the physical retail industry? What new technologies can help physical stores?

Recently, Riverbed Technology Company announced the results of a "2018 Retail Digital Transformation Survey", which explored the current development status of physical retailers, how to remain competitive, and how to promote excellent user experience while thriving. According to the survey results of 300 IT decision makers from the retail industry in the United States, Australia and Germany, nearly half of them said that their companies will adopt new technologies in the next three years to seek development and remain competitive, and 98% of decision makers believe that cloud solutions are essential to changing the digital retail experience. Although inventory tracking applications are as important as customer needs, 46% of decision makers still said that their companies are not currently using this type of application, but they will call on the company to adopt cloud technology immediately to achieve prosperity.

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"This survey shows that brick-and-mortar retail is thriving on new cloud technologies as it seeks to gain competitive advantage by delivering a superior user experience," said Subbu Iyer, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Riverbed. "Handling the complexities of this transformation depends entirely on next-generation infrastructure and management technologies, such as combining physical stores with digital capabilities to gain a competitive edge. Riverbed recognizes the challenges retailers face in meeting rapidly changing customer demands, and we are committed to helping them gain a competitive advantage through software-defined networking and digital experience management."

Use new technology to fill the gap between ideal and reality

Retailers today are experiencing a significant gap between ideal and reality. While retailers recognize the critical importance of retail apps to support in-store associates, 46% of decision-makers say their companies currently have no apps installed. Additionally, the purchase process becomes a pain point as 58% of retail decision-makers do not provide employees with mobile POS technology for customer transactions. The gap is even more pronounced for customer-facing technology, with 74% of retailers lacking virtual assistants and 67% not providing in-store customers with push notifications of relevant recommendations or sales. To keep up with rapidly changing customer demands, retailers have plenty of room to make up in a short period of time.

To evolve the digital experience in retail stores to meet future customer needs, a number of key technologies are needed. They include:

Retail apps for tracking inventory (40%)

Virtual assistants and digital shopping consultants (37%)

Mobile POS technology (35%)

AR mobile apps (34%)

Personalized in-store experience based on customer loyalty data (34%)

In-store push notifications (33%)

In-store on-demand video streaming (29%)

Wi-Fi is the key to unlocking business value

Wi-Fi connectivity in physical stores is critical to deploying digital services and increasing store profits. Employees can access important files and applications through Wi-Fi to get their work done no matter where they are. Customers use guest Wi-Fi to access marketing products and online/app shopping tools. Although 99% of respondents said their company provides in-store Wi-Fi, the user experience is less than ideal. When asked to describe the quality and speed of in-store Wi-Fi, more than half (58%) said that although the speed is fast, it is not effective in attracting customers. Only 19% believe that their Wi-Fi is both fast and effective in attracting customers. To stay competitive in 2018, retailers have begun to rethink their Wi-Fi deployment and monitoring strategies to completely transform their business.

Success depends on excellent user experience

Many traditional retailers are taking omnichannel solutions to improve user experience - accepting online channels while maximizing sales in physical stores. There are two ways to improve user experience: quickly deploy innovative applications (53%) and provide seamless online and offline experiences (50%). Retailers have reached a consensus on how to improve user experience in a more flexible way. About 49% of respondents said that real-time monitoring and adjustment of shopping behavior is crucial, and 47% of respondents said that collecting customer experience and satisfaction information through usage rates or in-store response times is also worthy of attention.

Next-generation technologies will be key to achieving this goal in 2018

The findings also reveal the impact of next-generation technologies on the success of in-store initiatives. From networking to Wi-Fi to application monitoring, infrastructure and digital experience management technologies enable retailers to unlock the value of the digital age and execute omnichannel initiatives. Over the next year, the areas where retailers plan to invest to support digital transformation cover an impressive range of needs. The most common areas of investment include:

The ability to quickly expand business locations (51%)

Improving the in-store Wi-Fi and mobile service experience for employees and customers (49%)

Gaining tools to better monitor customer applications, such as usage or user experience (48%)

Ensuring in-store POS connectivity and continuity (47%)

Providing new digital services and applications to employees and customers (47%)

Improve productivity of enterprise mobile apps, both on and across devices (45%)

Next-generation technologies can help retailers optimize their online and in-store channels, making them more competitive and thus generating more revenue. With the right technology strategy, retailers can reduce investment and operating costs while providing customers with a seamless experience.

Riverbed delivers solutions for the cloud and retail digital world

Riverbed helps retailers optimize their online and in-store channels. With Riverbed, retail IT can bring competitive advantages to the enterprise by delivering in-store and online performance, reliability, visibility and security. Riverbed solutions can improve application performance and provide customers and employees with visibility into the digital experience, while proactively resolving problems and quickly improving services. With Riverbed, retailers can reduce investment and operating costs while providing users with a seamless experience and quickly deploy services.

Rapidly deploy digital services with easy-to-use Riverbed SteelConnect SD-WAN, Riverbed Xirrus Wi-Fi, and Riverbed SteelHead, enabling rapid deployment of new services through unified network policy orchestration across LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi, and the cloud, providing secure connectivity while simplifying management.

Centralized management with SteelFusion, SteelHead, SteelConnect and Xirrus Wi-Fi to increase same-store profits while reducing operating and capital costs, new services to deliver a similar in-store and online experience, fast and secure POS transactions, reduced downtime and data loss, and faster disaster recovery.

Improve the customer shopping experience with Riverbed SteelCentral to gain visibility into the omnichannel digital experience of customers and employees, proactively resolve issues to improve service levels, and optimize application performance and improve in-store connectivity using SteelHead SD and SteelConnect.