The Retail sector may rise and fall, but there is no dearth of opportunity. Universally it is known as a practice of making goods and services available to consumers through different distribution channels. It’s dynamic and needs transformation for a consistently smashing and seamless user experience.

Like every sector, the retail industry also requires a seamless business process, which enables desired consumer experience. With the latest technology, retailing is not just about selling products but also retaining the customers and connecting beyond mundane buying and selling. The focus has moved towards communication with the customers, understanding their preferences and other behavioral patterns, managing the supply chain and the overall technology involved in the different work flows.

NASSCOM estimates that India’s BPM (Business Process Management) sector is expected to transcend into a 50 billion USD entity by 2020. The industry is expected to grow exponentially owing to the germination of new service offerings for high value opportunities. The IT- BPO revenues from retail are growing at the fastest pace (~20% CAGR) since the past few years. The retail industry has experienced drastic makeovers since the advent of internet.
Major retail players have already plunged into the BPM arena. The strategy could be elaborated as below:

• The retail players integrate the data collected from their brick and mortal stores, company website and a whole lot of third party e-commerce websites using packed applications focusing on customers and their interactions with the company. These processes offer a unified customer experience that enforces standardized methodologies.
• The BPM technology solutions streamline the workflows, escalate issues, and trigger the related processes. These solutions help enhance operational efficiency, reduces cost involved and provide insights in the customer experiences.
• Retailing is getting complex due to convergence of different service channels. The customers no longer crave for product quality; they also demand the best prices and better service levels. The BPM solution integrates the different platforms of display, distribution, communication and the interactions with the potential and existing customers.
• The BPM solution innovates in complex business processes by simplifying, improving and customizing them according to the organizational requirements. They provide a solution for business process discovery, consulting, implementing, automation, re-engineering, migration to new technology and regular maintenance and support functions.

They also support issues like replenishment planning, claims settlement, data collaboration with all levels of distribution channels (supplier to end store). It detects the minimum levels of stocks and sends automatic replenishment orders for the products. This not only reduces the error rate but also fastens the entire process.
All in all, BPM implementation across any industry helps ease out the process and make it seamless for the end users. Retail is a demanding sector and involves a tremendous B2C interface. BPM solutions help make this interface WOW!

Pankaj Sharma, BPM Consultant at PSIThe Retail sector may rise and fall, but there is no dearth of opportunity. Universally it is known as a practice of making goods and services available to consumers through different distribution channels. It’s dynamic and needs transformation for a consistently smashing and seamless user experience.
Like every sector, the retail industry also requires a seamless business process, which enables desired consumer experience. With the latest technology, retailing is not just about selling products but also retaining the customers and connecting beyond mundane buying and selling. The focus has moved towards communication with the customers, understanding their preferences and other behavioural patterns, managing the supply chain and the overall technology involved in the different work flows.
NASSCOM estimates that India’s BPM (Business Process Management) sector is expected to transcend into a 50 billion USD entity by 2020. The industry is expected to grow exponentially owing to the germination of new service offerings for high value opportunities. The IT- BPO revenues from retail are growing at the fastest pace (~20% CAGR) since the past few years. The retail industry has experienced drastic makeovers since the advent of internet.
Major retail players have already plunged into the BPM arena. The strategy could be elaborated as below:

• The retail players integrate the data collected from their brick and mortal stores, company website and a whole lot of third party e-commerce websites using packed applications focusing on customers and their interactions with the company. These processes offer a unified customer experience that enforces standardized methodologies.
• The BPM technology solutions streamline the workflows, escalate issues, and trigger the related processes. These solutions help enhance operational efficiency, reduces cost involved and provides insights in the customer experiences.
• Retailing is getting complex due to convergence of different service channels. The customers no longer crave for product quality; they also demand the best prices and better service levels. The BPM solution integrates the different platforms of display, distribution, communication and the interactions with the potential and existing customers.
• The BPM solution innovates in complex business processes by simplifying, improving and customising them according to the organisational requirements. They provide solution for business process discovery, consulting, implementing, automation, reengineering, migration to new technology and regular maintenance and support functions.

They also support issues like replenishment planning, claims settlement, data collaboration with all levels of distribution channels (supplier to end store). It detects the minimum levels of stocks and sends automatic replenishment orders for the products. This not only reduces the error rate but also fastens the entire process.
All in all, BPM implementation across any industry helps ease out the process and make it seamless for the end users. Retail is a demanding sector and involves tremendous B2C interface. BPM solutions help make this interface WOW!
Pankaj Sharma, BPM Consultant at PSI[:]