Technical Reports
HPL-2010-36
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Transforming Retail Customer Shopping Experiences Using Mobile Devices, Open Architectures, and Operational Business Intelligence
Densinger, Chuck; Dekhil, Mohamed; Ghosh, Riddhiman; Jain, Jhilmil; Hsu, Meichun
HP Laboratories
HPL-2010-36
Keyword(s): mobile, retail, operational, business intelligence, open architecture, customer experience, personalized, actionable insight
Abstract: The past 2 decades have witnessed the rapid and widespread adoption of three transformational technologies which are profoundly changing how we work and live: the Internet and internetworked devices, mobile technologies, and advanced data analytics. But despite their ubiquity, none of these technologies has had a significant impact on the in-store retail shopping experience. Aside from the products they sell, the inside of a Target, WalMart or Best Buy store is much the same today as it was in the early '90's. In fact, since the introduction of UPC scanning and computer-generated product signs and shelf tags, there has been almost no significant change to the customer-facing technologies in most retail stores. A few are using wireless checkout (e.g., Apple), self- checkout (e.g., Home Depot), or interactive kiosks (Best Buy, Target), but none of these features significantly leverage the Internet, mobile devices or advanced data analytics. Further, retailers' systems are frequently siloed; data for e-commerce sites is often separate from that for store systems, and CRM systems are not fully integrated across channels. Recent advances in service-oriented architectures (SOA), master data management (MDM) techniques and message-based architectures which de-couple components are enabling evolutionary approaches to more effective integration. But these advances have not moved fast enough to enable a rich mobile shopping experience leveraging an integrated platform. In this white paper, we will explore how it is now possible for retailers to create programs which deliver transformational changes to customer experiences in the store, integrating those experiences across channels, and doing so in a way that is based on modest investments and evolution of IT assets - not wholesale replacement in a "big bang" approach.
8 Pages
External Posting Date: March 6, 2010 [Fulltext]. Approved for External Publication
Internal Posting Date: March 6, 2010 [Fulltext]