Carpe Diem: 8 Strategies for Successful CIOs

Transcription

1 Carpe Diem: 8 Strategies for Successful CIOs

2 The Retail Paradox Yesterday the main expectations for the retail CIO were to keep the servers running, desktops patched, and store-based POS systems taking money. Today, the CIO fulfills a more strategic role, one that impacts the organization s ability to adapt to changing consumer preferences, preserve margins and serve customers. Are you keeping pace with your peers?

3 8 Strategies for Successful CIOs 1. Drive Customer-Centric Innovation 2. Rethink Budgeting and Push Expectations 3. Infatuate Your Customers with Your Brand 4. Consider Deployment and Empowerment 5. Blend Art and Science in IT 6. Embrace New Technology 7. Connect with Your Customers 8. Design and Deliver A Transparent Enterprise

4 Drive Customer-Centric 1. Innovation Let s face it, it s not enough to just sell products. Retailers need to truly connect with consumers. The best retailers are those that continually improve the customer experience. CIOs need to unify customer data, improve merchandising science, and reduce integration costs. In the store they need to adapt to changing security requirements, enable emerging payment methods, and turn showrooming traffic into loyal customers. Online they must adopt the latest e-commerce techniques coupled with marketing automation, re-targeting campaigns, social interactions, and improved search to capture the customer. As the technology leader of the organization, the CIO must champion innovation everywhere. Zenni Optical has revolutionized the prescription eyewear industry with customer-centric solutions.

5 2. Re-Think Budgeting and Push Expectations Retailers often complain that too much budget and staff time is consumed by expensive legacy systems and integration, areas that may not directly impact business growth. CIOs must consider alternate models that allow them to spend more on the things that propel the business forward. This is leading CIOs to consider cloud technologies, engineered systems, and preintegrated solutions. CIOs also need to retain the value of existing investments, stay competitive, improve security, make compliance easier, manage costs, and deliver business benefits with fewer risks.

6 3. Infatuate Customers with Your Brand Maybe it s an asking a customer why they left items in their cart. Maybe a store associate goes the extra mile to find a blouse in the right size at a nearby store. Perhaps it s a small discount rewarding a customer for a positive comment on Facebook. All of these gestures dazzle the customer, and they are all enabled by systems the CIO puts into place. CIOs must partner with other lines of the business such as marketing, to explore and discover ways in which to surprise and delight customers. Retailers like C. Wonder are adopting unique deployments of solutions embedded with best practices. This allows the CIO to embrace the business goals at hand and to stay focused on the customer.

7 4. Consider Deployment and Empowerment Today s customers expect to interact with retailers on their own terms. That means enabling in-store conversations using a tablet, ringing up purchases outside during a sidewalk sale, and responding quickly to complaints on social websites. CIOs need to lead the charge for adopting modern systems that connect customers to the brand, and keep those customers engaged. Employees need the right tools to make every customer interaction a memorable one. Our latest research initiative has discovered that a new democratic relationship between consumer and retailer is emerging. The single biggest challenge for retailers is to understand, empower and represent the new digitally empowered consumer operating across all touch points, including mobile. To access the research findings, please visit:

8 5. Blend Art and Science in IT In the past it was fine to rely on one s gut to make decisions, but today s competitive market requires a strong dose of science as well. Retailers are awash in data, and it s time to put that data to work to improve the business. CIOs should consider how to convert data into information, then inject business intelligence into all processes. CIOs must monitor the maturation of big data technologies and determine which ones add the most value to the enterprise. Retail companies are most successful when they correctly mix art and science. Why is the need for applying science to retail decision-making so urgent? Traditional brick-andmortar multi-channel retailers have online competitors ruled by data scientists who define retail as a data mining and optimization problem. Internet-only companies are data-driven in ways that traditional retailers simply haven t experienced. Learning how to counterbalance instinct with datadriven insight will level the playing field for traditional retailers.

9 6. Embrace New Technology Retailers like Nordstrom, Walmart, Staples, and John Lewis have created standalone labs that are busy exploring emerging technologies and their application to retail businesses. Often these labs are established through an acquisition, thus tapping directly into the startup mentality. CIOs must make a concerted effort to stay informed of emerging technology and consider the implications of a continually changing market. They must encourage those around them to experiment and question the old ways. They must show vision and think strategically when it comes to moving to new technologies. Last year, John Lewis was named Multichannel Retailer of the Year & Oracle Retailer of the Year at the 2013 Oracle Retail Week Awards.

10 7. Connect with Your Customers CIOs must stop thinking of their departments as cost centers and proactively contribute to growing the business. And for retail, this starts and stops with serving customers. In the modern retail organization it s not just marketing that owns the customer every department, including IT, has a stake in making customers happy. Shop Direct has become truly customer-centric. Shop Direct is extremely well-placed to provide shoppers with the best possible digital shopping experience.

11 8. Design and Deliver A Transparent Enterprise There s no corner of the business that s not touched by technology, affording the CIO a unique perspective across all business units within the organization. From this vantage point CIOs are responsible for cultivating and sharing insight with the rest of the enterprise. They must find ways to help employees better collaborate, so that planners, merchants, marketers, and sales associates can access information faster and make better business decisions. Groupe Dynamite gained a single cross-channel view of inventory and customers across all channels of operation.

12 Conclusion: Retailers are moving fast to transform their businesses to better serve empowered consumers. Many have selected Oracle Retail based on several criteria: Richest subject-matter expertise in the retail software industry covering fashion, grocery, hardlines, specialty, and department stores Most comprehensive solutions for retailers that include Planning, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Analytics, and Stores & Commerce Best applications and technology from one vendor that include database, middleware, and engineered systems Established cadence for introducing new features and continued innovation Visit Oracle Retail for more information. Contact Oracle Retail to understand how we can impact your business.