Start where the customer can’t see
Back in university, I was fully engaged with the topic of multi-channel retailing thanks to a marketing professor who had a long-standing passion for everything retail and digital. I learned a lot about omni-channel retailing and the customer’s way of looking at it. The marketing classes helped me appreciate the why’s and what’s, but the how’s of multi-channel retailing remained largely unknown.
Deeper understanding, however, came after I joined DELMIA Quintiq and was exposed to the retailer’s point of view. This shift in perspective made me appreciate that customer delight is costly for the retailer. Nevertheless, the bottom line should always be designed with the customer in mind. In the following paragraphs, I investigate the way DELMIA Quintiq helps retailers live up to the aspiration of a customer-centric multi-channel retailing model.
The new reality
My first realization is that customer satisfaction comes at a significant cost to the retailer. This happens not because retailers are lacking the technology to implement a multi-channel retail vision. In most cases, they are trying to tweak parts of their existing supply chains to somehow fit the new all-channel reality. Instead, a holistic view and a major supply chain transformation is needed in order to serve the end-user at all times, at any location and, above all, to remain profitable.
The creation of a seamless multi-channel buying experience should always be balanced against the reasonable expectation for profit. Therefore, before hastily investing in customer-facing e-retail technologies, retailers should first consider every aspect of the supply chain that would support them in serving the customer profitably.
Read also: How to achieve operational excellence with integrated retail planning
What a multi-channel fulfillment model looks like
Capgemini, the global consultancy firm, has compiled an easy-to-understand framework for envisioning a customer-centric multi-channel fulfillment model.
The framework offers an in-depth overview of required supply chain capabilities as well as two fundamental insights:
- Aligned business operations and full data visibility are the underlying foundation of a profitable multi-channel retailing model. Fulfilling the vision top down (i.e. customer-facing technologies first, back-end processes second) is a recipe for failure.
- The multi-channel retail experience requires integration of many different systems. Each system built into the fulfillment model must, first and foremost, be able to integrate with all the other systems. Unless this requirement is met, the technology will fail to contribute to an enhanced multi-channel experience.
The DELMIA Quintiq solution is designed to fit seamlessly into any IT environment. It can enhance existing enterprise software with no complications or loss of data. Whichever systems are already in use to enable multi-channel retailing, DELMIA Quintiq is fully compatible.
Meeting this critical prerequisite is one part of the journey towards a profitable customer-centric multi-channel retailing; designing the bottom line with the customer in mind is the other. In my second post in this series, I will explore how retailers can offer their customers better choice, delivery and aftersales care while staying profitable.
Continue to read part 2 of this series.
