Connected Customer Experience - .NET Downloads, Developer

0

Connected Customer Experience

A Microsoft Industry Perspective for Retail

Published January 2012

1

Connected Customer Experience A Microsoft Industry Perspective for Retail

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.

© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft and Dynamics are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

2


Contents

Philosophy in the Boardroom .............................................................................................................. 3

Industry Priorities and the Forces at Work ........................................................................................... 3 The Art of Retailing .................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Information in Overdrive ........................................................................................................................................................... 4 The Customer Engagement Lifecycle ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Performance Drivers .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Technology Innovations ............................................................................................................................................................. 6

Formulating Winning Customer-Centric Strategies ............................................................................... 6 Putting the Customer Experience Right at the Center ............................................................................................................... 7

Retailers Need to Understand Their Customers .................................................................................................................... 7 Analytics, Measurement and Reporting ................................................................................................................................ 8

Enhanced Infrastructure and Automation ................................................................................................................................. 8 Increase IT Flexibility and Strength ....................................................................................................................................... 8

Connected Business Partner and Vendor Ecosystem ................................................................................................................ 9 Collaborating across Company Boundaries ........................................................................................................................... 9

Differentiating Solutions ..................................................................................................................... 9 Mobility .................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Digital Marketing ..................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Adaptive Insight ................................................................................................................................................................... 11 User-Driven Experiences ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 Augmented Reality .............................................................................................................................................................. 12

Technical Infrastructure ........................................................................................................................................................... 12 Cloud Computing ................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Enterprise Infrastructure Services ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Communication and Automation ............................................................................................................................................ 13 Channel Management ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Enterprise Application Services ........................................................................................................................................... 13

Benefits and Value Realization ................................................................................................................................................ 13

Accelerating Time-to-Value ............................................................................................................... 16 Assessment .............................................................................................................................................................................. 16 Initiative Planning .................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Value Realization ..................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Industry Leadership ................................................................................................................................................................. 16 Extensive Partner Ecosystem ................................................................................................................................................... 17

What Difference Does it Make? ......................................................................................................... 17

Call to Action .................................................................................................................................... 18

Resources ......................................................................................................................................... 19

Contacts ............................................................................................................................................ 19

3


Philosophy in the Boardroom

Retail customers are increasingly well-informed. Retail businesses are too. Their customers are providing more information about themselves, in endless streams of both observed and self-reported data, all of which are prime sources for analysis. The volume of data also covers the many touch points in the purchasing process, and each interaction is an opportunity for the vendor to demonstrate the transparency and sense of connection expected by today’s customers.

While the demand for real-time interaction is on the rise, often these contacts are brief and impersonal and typically disconnected from one and another. Businesses can employ a key strategy to counter this trend—become a customer-centric retailer—and treat shopper relationships as a strategic asset to drive lifetime value. To seize this opportunity, enterprising retail executives build or procure powerful and flexible customer-centric information technology solutions designed to deliver connected experiences to shoppers.

Advancements in technologies such as cloud-based services, large-scale databases, digital media, devices and interfaces, adaptive search, and Internet-based and GPS-based systems have opened up many new ways to reach and stay connected to shoppers. Targeted promotional activity and product or service information is more relevant, consistent, and available across store, web, mobile, and social media channels, and match the customer’s request for easy access and a consistent shopping experience.

Microsoft’s vision for improved customer-centricity focuses on client characterization, loyalty, and marketing. The strategy involves improving retailers’ ability to increase volume, frequency, and revenue potential of shopping transactions by increasing store traffic, shopper-to-buyer conversion rates, and average purchase size. Today’s web, search, mobile and wireless communication devices deliver 360-degree customer views and deeply personalized customer experiences, and with these technologies, the retailer can accomplished these strategic goals.

This paper is intended for business and technology leaders at retailers who seek novel, business-focused approaches to helping shape connected customer strategies and solutions. It discusses the forces at work and industry priorities, considerations for formulating business and technology strategies and solutions, how to accelerate information technology (IT) execution planning to realize optimal value, and describes Microsoft’s approach and unique value proposition in the retail sector.

Industry Priorities and the Forces at Work

In a period of economic uncertainty, a retail business faces a competing matrix of business drivers—addressing customers’ need for value and maintaining their loyalty while finding ways to save money—in forms more acute and critical to its survival and success. The industry is in an unprecedented state of flux today, and retailers face a number of ongoing and emerging challenges that shape and revise everyday business decisions. With falling trade barriers, continued global sourcing and new emerging markets, globalization continues to overshadow the retail space.

4


The Art of Retailing

As communication rapidly expands in both innovation and reach, the art of retailing products and services around the world is also changing. Each customer interaction, even those that do not occur face-to-face, becomes a potentially positive or negative experience with a distinct effect on the customer-retailer relationship.

The quick, impersonal contacts of today’s online page views are part of a continuum of interaction that goes all the way to special offers and programs for loyal, lifetime customers. Contrast this with times past, when shopper-store connections were more stable due to geography or lack of alternatives.

According to a recent Australian surveyi, customer service options rank highly in decision factors for today’s customers. The customer’s familiarity with the brand, other users’ reviews, and even the cost of delivery were rated as or more important than having the lowest overall price. Much of this information can be obtained by the customer through online or mobile research without ever setting foot in a store and reinforces the need to engage thoughtfully and positively with the customer throughout the engagement lifecycle and at each discrete touch point.

When people do come to a brick-and-mortar location, their experience should be meaningful and appropriately personal. The purpose of in-person stores is shifting from transactional centres to showcases for the entire organization; stores now serve as a connection to the company’s online presence.

Moreover, the nature of customer service is not uniform. Expensive or complicated products may have a longer selling cycle and require more personal attention from sales staff. For volume-driven retailers, such as grocery stores, customers are more likely to appreciate fast, efficient service. Nor are all measurements of success direct and easily acquired. Many retailers measure customer service and relationship management through surveys or follow-up phone calls.

Information in Overdrive

People today often access a great deal of information before making purchases and easily compare results across retailers. Skilled customers search for variable real-time data such as prices and inventory, and they have many ways to buy the same products, whether at brick-and-mortar stores, with mobile phones or other devices. They take the time to search for peer reviews, and they want to receive personally relevant promotional offers from merchants.

For example, the Direct Marketing Association recently reported that customers are accessing store information on their mobile phones more than 50 per cent of the time as part of the shopping process, and some are even comparison-shopping while mobileii. These trends are forcing retailers to be more proactive in engaging customers than ever before.

The Customer Engagement Lifecycle

Purchasing falls into three stages, as described in Table 1. Each can be served by today’s technology innovations. With new ways of communicating in all three areas, it is important to channel IT investment into low-cost provisioning of products and services.

5


Common marketing and promotional vehicles include TV, print, radio, newspaper advertising, Internet, interactive displays, digital signage, kiosks, direct mail, and in-store events. Social media outlets, such as Facebook, are used by many companies to give special deals and gifts to connected customers and spread the word about special sales and discounts. Small retailers benefit from grassroots marketing, word-of-mouth, and local event sponsorship. Retailer brand names and brand-name merchandise help attract a distinct clientele. Loyalty programs, which reward frequent or large purchases, help retailers develop a customer base. Gift cards are a popular way to generate repeat visits. Retailers may hold special sales or events to drive store traffic, introduce items, or clear out excess merchandise. Discounts or markdowns are common in some categories, such as women’s apparel.

Stage Typical Customer Actions

Before purchase

Research across devices and sites

Solicit input from friends on social networks

Read reviews, ratings, and experiences

Compare prices and search for coupons

During purchase

Access information and transactions anytime and anywhere

Demand flexibility: buy online, pick up in-store

Expect a personalized and contextual experience

After purchase Read sales, promotions, and newsletters

Ask questions about delivery, instructions, and warranties

Participate in the community, write reviews, and contribute ideas

Table 1: The Purchase Process: Three Stages of Activity

Understanding demographic trends and segment preferences is critical to successful retailer strategy and marketing. Customer demographics vary by retailer and can be different within a particular retail segment. For example, while women buy more clothing and beauty products, men are more likely to buy motorcycles and customer electronics. Generation Y (1982-2001)iii, on the other hand, tends to pursue instant gratification and put a priority on buying the latest technology.

Performance Drivers

Personal income, customer confidence, and interest rates are just a measure of the factors that drive demand. Some of the most significant elements in retailing today involve fluctuating customer preferences and demand levels, the rise of online and mobile shopping transactionsiv, and the increasing importance of emerging markets. These aspects have led to decreasing brand loyalty, complex financial management and reporting requirements, and mounting pressure for more cooperation and transparency with partners around the world. Include increasingly intricate supply chains, corporate structures, entry barriers, trade regulations and labor laws, and the results have retail executives working to manage a complicated set of business drivers. The profitability of individual retailers depends on efficient supply chain management and effective merchandising and marketing. Large retailers often have advantages in purchasing, distribution, and

6


marketing. Small companies can still compete effectively by selling unique merchandise, providing superior customer service, offering a distinctive shopping experience, or serving a local market. Every organization has a profit-and-loss target, and retail is one of the most-scrutinized industries. There is always room to streamline operations or grow a different, larger or wider market share. Taking advantage of current opportunities in business process improvement can dramatically affect the bottom line. Strategic points of entry include increasing information security (reducing risk exposure), and changing processes to comply more quickly with regulatory directives and reporting requirements. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for the retail customer-oriented culture:

New market penetration New customer acquisition Revenue per customer Customer attrition and abandonment Business growth rate Time-to-market

Technology Innovations

Customer conversions today go further than just the moment of purchase, as decision points multiply in today’s information-rich environment. Success can depend on effectively presenting relevant and accurate information to each customer across these multiple devices, locations, and transactions. With better data about customer behaviour becoming available all the time, every interaction can more effectively serve both the buyer and the seller.

The emerging future of retail goes beyond Web-based commerce to include technologies such as cloud computing, mobile, augmented reality, radio-frequency identification (RFID) for supply chain, near-field computing (NFC) for in-store, touchscreen interfaces, and large-scale databases. The trick is implementing them in ways relevant to customer needs before, during, and after their shopping experience.

Technology improvements currently available to retailers centre on new infrastructure architecture options; mobile device communication process efficiencies and information flows; delivery models using search, cloud, and digital media computing; channel integration platforms; and location services.

Formulating Winning Customer-Centric Strategies

New technology continually transforms the way customers interact with businesses. For today’s value-driven customers, retailers must create personal, interactive, and engaging experiences that excite and convey value and cater to the media and form preferred by the individual.

A retailer’s current key objectives include increasing demand generation, driving customer engagement, and building insight about customer behaviour and desires. Microsoft recommends three central strategies to achieve these objectives: customer-centricity, enhanced infrastructure, and appropriate use of business partners and vendors.

7


Putting the Customer Experience Right at the Center

A focus on customer-centred shopping—reaching shoppers where they are, on their own terms—is a must for retail business strategists. This customer-centricity perspective is a consistent view of the customer, brand, and market that gives retailers a customized and focused way to service products and services throughout channels, products, and services and across all demographics, geographies, and emerging markets. The best way to achieve this perspective is through an automated and consolidated customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Retailers Need to Understand Their Customers

Retailers know that a solid campaign strategy and appropriate tactics can improve the customer experience and, in time, customer loyalty. Techniques and practices that make frequent shoppers feel recognized and served can create long-term clients out of one-off customers and ultimately lead to increased lifetime customer value. Example approaches include extending traditional, single-channel loyalty programs into multi-channel programs, readily providing online purchase history while in-store, promoting mobile coupons and other location-based offers. Typical measures of customer success include traffic volume, conversion rates, and basket size.

Figure 1: Rich Connections with Customers

8


Successful retailers are using technology built on Microsoft® Dynamics® CRM to connect digitally with both customers and suppliers. These customer-centric solutions are implemented in conjunction with Microsoft® Services and retail industry partners, and maintain a solution-specific focus on the user experience; delivering a differentiated, value-added, multi-channel shopping experience that enhances brand value and encourages customer loyalty.

Digital campaigns provide visibility into marketing impact across customer response, preference, attitude, intent, conversion, satisfaction, referral, and re-purchase. Loyalty programs, one-to-one or personalized marketing, and rewarding loyal customers with special, relevant offers and promotions are measurable tactics for attracting and retaining customers. Business insight helps retailers gain and apply in-depth knowledge about their customers.

Many retailers are driving customer-centric strategies and solutions into their business strategy specifically for attracting and retaining customers, such as Tesco, Amazon, eBay, and Target. These companies are continuously building their brands online and mitigating reasons for their customers to go elsewhere. Additional examples include: AutoTrader.com, where key sales information is captured through CRM; Chill Factore, an excellent model for tracking customer habits and appropriate up-selling; the Jelly Belly Candy Company, which reduced customer churn by 34 per cent with an automated customer management solution; and a Best Buy unit, which helped raise productivity by using a knowledge base with mobile access.

Analytics, Measurement and Reporting

Advances in customer analytics allow retailers to view online and in-person behaviour patterns more comprehensively. From brief ‘clickstream’ analysis to extended audience intelligence, these enhancements dramatically improve segmenting accuracy and timeliness.

Retailers now capture, aggregate, and manipulate significant amounts of information about each transaction, which can readily lead to the discovery of patterns in behaviour and improved management of business metrics. The computing power and approaches available now which unify these many sources into useful key performance indicators (KPIs) can be shared across the organization, with partners or the public. With this new capability, technology can efficiently collect and share what was formerly individual knowledge. The same principles can be employed to make advertising as relevant as any other content.

This ‘tailoring’ of material presented to the customer makes it more likely that the right information will be available at the right time to enrich the contact point. Today’s retailer has the ability to use rich data to deliver a consistent, connected customer experience.

Enhanced Infrastructure and Automation

Increase IT Flexibility and Strength

Retailers are also improving the customer experience by taking advantage of opportunities to shift infrastructure to the ‘cloud’ and improve the speed and efficiency of core business processes. The software and services available today include enterprise automation services (EAS) and more diverse, convenient communication methods.

9


Connected Business Partner and Vendor Ecosystem

Collaborating across Company Boundaries

New technologies provide enhanced capabilities for managing business-to-business partnerships for easy access to various services and catalogue management.

Differentiating Solutions

Retailers require core business services that support revenue generation, products and services definition, customer demand generation, and products and services delivery. These retail-specific business capabilities are essential to optimizing customer-centric solutions:

Buy Supplier management

Purchasing contracts and agreements

Purchase requests

Purchase order management

Receiving

Inspection and disposition

Payment processing

Sell Marketing

Promotions and rebates

Customer management

Opportunity management

Quotations and pricing

Sales contracts and agreements

Allocations

Picking

Shipping and exports

Transportation

Store operations

Service delivery

Billing and process receivables

Service Call centre

Field service

Returned materials

Returns dispositions

Service contracts and warranties

The customer experience can be made more immersive, from contextual online activity and in-person digital signage and kiosks, all designed to incorporate search for products information, research, comparison, and buying decisions. (Source: APQC)

10


Mobility

Innovations in mobile application platforms now simplify the customer experience. Retailers can easily empower the customer to create and use virtual shopping lists; discover information about store services; use geo-location services and navigation; search and browse product catalogues; locate in-store products; scan barcodes and get product information, including in-store availability and ‘near me’ details, and promotions, like current offers, comparisons, reviews, and suggestions; receive

personalized, real-time push offers based on context, and continue the conversation post-shopping.

Mobile self-service includes features such as shopping lists, detailed product information, special offers, targeted cross-sells and up-sells, location and context-aware in-store marketing, two-dimensional (2-D) barcode scanning, voice-enabled assistance, and mobile check out.

Retailers can employ powerful barcoding technology, like Microsoft® Tag to bridge the gap between brick-and-mortar marketing efforts and offline advertising with the digital world. The small graphic codes can be printed, stuck, or displayed just about anywhere, and they help

transform whatever they are attached to into highly interactive and immersive portals. With the ability to transform gift cards into interactive experiences, customers can easily check their balance, find the closest store, or view/listen to a message from the gift giver—turning these interactions into merchandising opportunities.

These mobile applications and advances can connect sales channels. For example, bar codes and tags link brick-and-mortar stores to the retailer’s online environment. Tags can be used to allow shoppers to save an item in the store to their personalized online shopping list, so they can easily buy the item later. People can also scan a Tag to easily share product information with friends for advice or recommendation.

Digital Marketing

When customers browse and shop, retailers have multiple opportunities to interact and learn. Presenting the right information in a way that helps customers fully engage in the buying decision is a key element to a successful sale.

Solutions in this area have three primary objectives:

Create Demand: A media network and range of tools to help target and reach the right audience more efficiently

Drive Engagement: Exciting, consistent, connected multi-channel experiences using an integrated suite of technologies

Figure 3:

Engaging Experiences for Engaged Customers

Figure 2: Mobile Devices and Gift Cards

11


Build Insight: Solutions that help retailers monitor, measure, analyze and organize data and turn it into actionable results

Adaptive Insight

Adaptive insight is the ability to present the right information to customers at the right time quickly and easily. Moreover, adaptive insight offers retailers the opportunity to monetize information where appropriate. Retailers need to move away from traditional directed selling tactics—crafting specific, narrowly targeted offers for selected, well-defined demographics—embracing a user-driven, yet proactive approach to marketing.

This approach considers a wide array of factors, from market segments and customer profiles, to page-click usage patterns and activity affiliation that influence the content and delivery of the message—resulting in better service at every contact point. Varying levels of familiarity, certainty, and behaviour are appropriate and encouraged and adaptive insight uses the available information and context to determine best strategy and tactics for each interaction. The technology refines the message content as more data and knowledge are gained and granted.

User-Driven Experiences

Collecting, synthesizing, and executing upon all of these factors is a complex task. Microsoft has the answer to solve this puzzle: the adaptive marketing platform (AMP). The adaptive marketing platform is a set of technologies and services that work together across applications and channels to drive longitudinal customer engagement, improve conversions, and tailor personalized content.

Many elements influence conversion and engagement success. Finding the right content that is timely and appropriate and relevant to users’ preferences, behavior, intent, and awareness of their social networks and behavior help the marketer hone their message and drive toward their conversion goals. The AMP clusters these context and input factors into three primary groups:

Market intelligence – “I need to adjust my digital marketing to the demographics, brand exposure, and long-term activity of my prospects.”

Social networks and opinion – “I want to use the opinions of friends and the marketplace to change my message to prospects.”

Local activity – “I should consider how my prospects and clients experience and consume my content and adapt accordingly.”

The adaptive marketing platform ties these elements together into a single, cohesive system that can help discover, surface, and deliver the right message to prospects on a flexible, scalable, and dependable architecture.

The engine that powers the platform is Microsoft’s enterprise search offering, FAST Search. Enterprise search is the next generation tool for the marketer. It is both the content aggregator and distributor. Search can combine both content and behavior into a unified data set and considers context, channel, behavior, and a myriad of other influences to query for the most relevant results for a single touch point with the customer no matter how nuanced the environment. Search is designed for probabilities and best estimates, and excels in environments where user behavior is in constant motion against a body of media, products, channels, and devices.

12


Augmented Reality

In order to achieve the dream of shopping with augmented reality advertisements, or viewing avatars and social information ‘tagged’ to individual people, technology must advance a bit further.

Graphics are superimposed on displays to illustrate key information to the viewer. Digital marketing campaigns can also be carried out through web-based augmented reality graphics, adding a new dimension to the kinds of video available in online advertising.

Technical Infrastructure

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has the potential to reshape how retailers buy and deploy technology. This emerging technology can reduce costs, mitigate the complexity of integration with legacy applications, and improve speed-to-market due to new retail capabilities and business-enabled applications. These include cloud-based customer loyalty management, merchandising, e-commerce, business insights, and workforce management.

Cloud computing provides an innovative and cost-effective delivery model for retailers, including attracting and retaining new customers through unique retail experiences, customer loyalty, social media, mobility, application stores and marketplaces. It gives retailers faster speed-to-market through specific improvements and functions, such as:

New functionality

Simplified software procurement and deployment

Reduced operating costs and overhead

Mitigated integration complexity for legacy applications

Centralized data stores to connect with customers across a diversity of devices

Auto-scaling websites during high-volume traffic bursts

Community building for customers ranging from digital shoppers to local store outreach

Social engagement monitoring and execution

Improved delivery of digital content

Enterprise Infrastructure Services

Enterprise infrastructure services (EIS) make up the core identity, security, and transformational “plumbing” for enterprise applications, business capabilities, and commercial services.

These services include:

Centralized workflow that removes business workflow logic from database stored procedures and externalizes it in a secure, efficient, and effective way for easier maintenance.

Centralized information transformation that enables reuse of data transformation logic across multiple services, extending and building upon aggregated internal business services and bringing rich services to market faster.

Unique customer identity, which allows the retailer to establish user identity through a single sign-on and flow this identity to every relevant site. User authorization and rights attribution happens in each site based upon user roles.

13


Communication and Automation

Channel Management

Sales, product, promotion, and production strategies can be optimized through a set of initiatives such as enhancing the customer experience, coordinating contact with the client across multiple channels, and the ability to securely buy any product and/or service from variable locations from multiple devices such as point-of-sale, online, and mobile phones.

Enterprise Application Services

Enterprise application services (EAS) provide both custom and packaged transactional solutions that automate retailers’ business capabilities and support the creation, management, and sharing of information. These services include business services such as customer profiles, payments, fulfilment, product information management, merchandising, customer management, advertisement, and content management.

In broad terms, the services stem from the practice of information management and collaboration, and spans input from customers, suppliers and internal sources, item management, and support for new product introduction.

Benefits and Value Realization

The most pressing question for the next generation retailer is how to align technology-enabled customer-centric solutions to their business strategy in order to deliver superior customer value.

Imagine a long-time retailer: an example key business driver for this retailer might be the complexity introduced by multi-channel retailing. To address these intricacies, the retailer can undertake a number of enabling changes that will help realize the benefits and outcomes.

The benefits dependency network (BDN) is a model that links IT investments and initiatives to the business activities undergoing change and the root causes of those changes. It is part of an approach developed by the Cranfield University School of Management in the UK and is designed to help align technology to business strategy and performance metrics in a simple, networked, and interconnected way.

See Figure 4 for an example BDN with retail business drivers and strategies.

14

Figure 4: Example Benefits Dependency Network (BDN) for Retail Business Drivers and Strategies

Example inputs into a retail design session could be: Enhance the customer experience across multiple channels; provide cost-effective products and services at reasonable prices; create, access, and apply one consistent view of the customer; rapidly build upon aggregated internal business services; and bring rich products and services to market faster. (Source for Business Capabilities: APQC. Source for BDN Framework: Cranfield University School of Management)

Reduce Customer Attrition

Grow the Business Grow faster than

market

Agility Speed-to-market of new products and

services

Increase Revenue Increase revenue

per customer

Benefits

Business Drivers

Increases in complexity due

to multi-channel retailing

Increase profitability

Comply with regulatory directives

Grow larger/wider market share

Improve customer

experience and customer loyalty

Low-cost provisioning of products and

services

Increase information

security

Objectives

Performance Measures/

Values

Business Drivers/Objectives (CEO/CXO-Level Issues)

Enabling Changes

Buy › Manage

Suppliers › Stock Deals › Contract

Sell › Sales › Marketing › Promotions and

Rebates › Loyalty › Offer › Shopper › Product

Comparisons › Payment

Business Partners

› Partner Services

Channel Management

› Point of Sale › Mobile Devices › Internet › Kiosk

Security › Improved security

on retail transactions/payments

› Provide antimalware/ antivirus to customers

Mobile Devices

Cloud Computing

Web 2.0 Service Providers

Analytics, Measurement and

Reporting

Adaptive Search

Enterprise Infrastructure

Services

IT Enablers Business Changes

Business Changes/Capabilities IT Enablers

Service › Delivery/distribu

tion services › Single customer

service

Enterprise Application Services › Application

Services Information Services

› Collaboration Services

CRM › Sales › Marketing › Service

15

Based on the outcomes of a BDN scenario, better informed decisions can be made during the design of the target solution. Putting the customer experience right at the center, and designing products, services and solutions from their perspective.

Figure 5: Example Customer-Centric Multi-Channel Solution Design

16


Accelerating Time To Value The Microsoft® Enterprise Strategy Program focuses on business impact and value by optimizing the use of technology to accelerate customers toward their business goals and foster innovation. It provides business executives with a programmatic approach that enables business transformation, advances technology thought leadership, and maximizes the value of Microsoft products and services.

Through a range of service offerings, the Enterprise Strategy Program employs methodology and frameworks that are built on extensive knowledge and experience working with customers in various industries around the world. The Microsoft® Value Realization Framework employs a structured three-part process that provides context for defining initiatives, plans for measurable change, and demonstrates business value. This methodology results in a prioritized portfolio of opportunities, a program for change and value prediction, and a value realization scorecard. This framework will help put Microsoft customers on a course that accelerates time to value.

Assessment

Assess the key forces at work, drivers for change, capture requirements and success factors.

Assess current business, economics, organizational and technology landscape.

Analyse competitive market position, emerging trends, challenges, capabilities, portfolio plan and areas for investment that will help to identify and prioritize specific requirements, gaps and priorities.

Initiative Planning

Formulate strategic direction.

Define key business and technology capability changes required for target vision.

Business justification.

Define architectural changes required.

Prioritize and develop plan to deploy within the organization, while maintaining focus on the business objectives.

Value Realization

Deploy and operationalize the strategy.

Establish the right governance to manage and monitor performance, track, and support value realization.

Drive effective change and organizational adoption.

Industry Leadership

Microsoft provides thought leadership, better shopper connection, and proven partner solutions that let retailers and their suppliers serve shoppers where they are with what they want. Benefits include:

17


Microsoft infrastructure solutions are designed to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) while increasing business agility. In particular, they support cost-effective, central management of store systems.

Microsoft’s productivity and collaboration platform provides comprehensive solutions to empower retail employees to better serve customers and complete their operational tasks. This platform includes capabilities ranging from unified communications (UC) to business intelligence (BI) to customer relationship management (CRM).

Microsoft’s digital marketing solutions help improve customer engagement and drive conversion in an increasingly connected, multi-device, and multi-channel commercial landscape. These solutions provide a solid foundation for content publishing and retail messaging, yet provide the latitude to address both current and future initiatives and needs.

Extensive Partner Ecosystem

Microsoft strives to enable the success of our retail industry clients by working with partners to deliver solutions that attract and retain customers, improve profitability, and accelerate business growth.

Microsoft works with hundreds of partners to deliver industry solutions that unite Microsoft product knowledge with integrated service vendor (ISV) applications and system integrator (SI) partner know-how. Teams and individuals organize partner directories and groups into industry solution categories, with examples of deployed solutions.

These solutions, built on Microsoft’s application and server platforms, offer proven and scalable capabilities for critical retail operations and digital commerce solutions ranging from the point-of-sale (POS) to the supply chain to mobile e-commerce solutions.

What Difference Does it Make? The bottom line is that customers have increased their expectations for both one-time and recurring retail transactions. They try to get the best possible deal, and that often means being online rather than in a store. Customers are using the storefront to shop, but return home to compare prices. In this scenario, price commonly becomes the determining factor and ultimately devalues the retail shopping experience.

To counter this trend, retailers exploit their unique advantages: “touch and feel,” instant gratification, and customer service. Retailers must transfer the “online” experience to their stores by taking a transparent approach that empowers customers to comparison shop, while providing differentiated value through service and delivery. By embracing this strategy, retailers can turn their stores into shopping destinations that provide opportunities for increased conversions and satisfied customers.

Building a customer-centric organization takes vision, discipline, consistency, and persistence, but the effort has tangible rewards. Personalizing the customer experience leads to differentiated brands and better customer loyalty. Marketing teams can run more effective analysis and segmentation-driven marketing campaigns, and sales associates equipped with the right product and customer information can significantly increase sales while offering “high touch” service.

18


Some of the benefits of pursuing these strategic recommendations include:

Increased top-line revenue through increased shopper traffic, higher shopper-to-buyer conversion, increased basket size, effective campaigns

Enhanced brand value with greater customer loyalty, enhanced brand value, improved ROI, long-term business viability

Deployment flexibility on-premises, private or public cloud, loosely coupled solution that complement existing investments

The solutions described in this paper help retailers create 360-degree customer views that are consistent across store, web, mobile, and social media channels. Connected customer experiences help retailers drive down support costs and increase customer satisfaction. By helping retailers discover new business models, differentiated products and services, and coordinating web, search, mobile and wireless communication, innovative retailers can provide a unique, personal experience for customers that will continue to differentiate them from their competitors and stand out in the increasingly chaotic and changing marketplace.

For more information about Microsoft’s Connected-Customer Centricity retail services and products, please contact your Microsoft account representative.

Call to Action The Microsoft Enterprise Strategy Program is designed to manage the complexities presented in this paper and deliver tangible results. The program fills an important gap. Management consultants often lack the technical expertise needed to examine thoroughly and transform an enterprise IT environment. Technology experts rarely have the required insight into business strategy and the intricacies of how business decisions are made. The Enterprise Strategy Program delivers the best of both worlds. After all, nobody knows Microsoft products and their capabilities better than Microsoft. Therefore, this type of engagement can help you to develop your technology-enabled, customer-centric strategies, architectures, and solutions by helping:

Align your IT ecosystem with your business goals

Maximize ROI on your entire Microsoft software portfolio and services investment

Realize the full potential of non-Microsoft technologies

Remove redundant technologies and streamline your heterogeneous IT environment

Create a long-term technology road map to further business innovation

“Businesses engaging the Enterprise Strategy program can realize a 375 per cent risk-adjusted ROI in a three-year contract, with payback in just over ten months.”

Based on a composite organization. “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Services’ Enterprise Strategy Program”, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, May 2010

19


Resources Microsoft Connected Experiences for Retail http://www.microsoft.com/retail Microsoft Enterprise Strategy Program: http://www.microsoft.com/microsoftservices/en/us/strategy.aspx Microsoft Cloud for Mobile: http://mobile.microsoft.com/cloud/en-us/default.mspx/ WBCNY Economic Trend Analysis: http://www.wbcny.com/pdfs/2011ShiftInEconomic.pdf Getting Results the Agile Way: http://gettingresults.com/wiki/Main_Page

Contacts For more information, please contact (in alphabetical order):

Webster Mudge [email protected] Matt Muta [email protected] Roy Sharples [email protected]

i http://www.smartcompany.com.au/sales/20110202-online-shoppers-value-customer-service-and-reputation-above-price-survey.html iiii

The Definitive Source for Direct Marketing Benchmarks, March 1, 2011, Direct Marketing Association http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1529 iii Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation, 2000, William Strauss and Neil Howe

iv More than half of smartphone owners use mobile devices in retail stores: study, March 14, 2011, Mobile Commerce Daily,

by Dan Butcher, http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/03/14/more-than-half-of-smartphone-owners-use-mobile-devices-in-retail-stores-study

http://www.microsoft.com/retail

http://www.microsoft.com/microsoftservices/en/us/strategy.aspx

http://mobile.microsoft.com/cloud/en-us/default.mspx/

http://www.wbcny.com/pdfs/2011ShiftInEconomic.pdf

http://gettingresults.com/wiki/Main_Page

mailto:[email protected]



http://www.smartcompany.com.au/sales/20110202-online-shoppers-value-customer-service-and-reputation-above-price-survey.html

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/sales/20110202-online-shoppers-value-customer-service-and-reputation-above-price-survey.html

http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1529

http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1529

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/03/14/more-than-half-of-smartphone-owners-use-mobile-devices-in-retail-stores-study

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/03/14/more-than-half-of-smartphone-owners-use-mobile-devices-in-retail-stores-study

Documents

Connected Customer Experience - .NET Downloads, Developer