For Business Process & Applications Professionals (Length: 21 pages)

July 7, 2008 (updated July 23, 2008)

Retail Multichannel IT Road Map

How Can Retail IT Support Multichannel Trading Without Ripping And Replacing Everything?

by George Lawrie

with Sharyn Leaver, Varun Sedov

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

While many retailers still trade via isolated channels, sometimes even referring to the online channel as "store 999," consumers demand a complete shopping experience across channels that includes interactions such as researching or reserving merchandise online and picking it up in the store. To create a superior cross-channel experience for consumers, retail business process and applications professionals must overcome the roadblock legacy of conflicting use cases and channel-specific metrics, inconsistent inventory and merchandise master data, and channel-specific customer and order data. To avoid the cost and risk of wholesale applications replacement, savvy retailers must develop a road map of incremental IT investments that links each investment to the firm's strategic objectives and the quantitative business case for individual cross-channel interactions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES & RESOURCES

itemSurprise! Consumers Expect A Consistent Cross-Channel Experience

itemThe State Of IT Support For Multichannel Retailing: Gaps Galore

itemUse Both Tools And Processes To Master Cross-Channel Interactions

itemCreate A Cross-Channel Road Map

Recommendations

itemSequence Cross-Channel Interactions Using A Risk/Reward Ratio

itemSupplemental Material

Forrester interviewed 29 vendor and user companies, including: Atos Origin, B&Q, EDS, Infosys Technologies, IVIS Group, Microsoft, Nau, Oracle, SAP, and Tchibo.

Related Research Documents

itemThe Inevitable Convergence Of Retail Channels

May 17, 2007

itemThe Interaction Platform

October 4, 2004

Find Documents In Related Categories

This document falls under the following categories. Click on a link below to find similar documents.
Analyst: George Lawrie
Technology: Packaged Applications, Supply Chain Management
Industry: eBusiness/eCommerce, eCommerce Platforms & Technologies, Multichannel Retail, Retail, Retail Supply Chain, Retail Technologies
Geography: Asia Pacific, Europe, North America

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