Kathy Gibson reports – NTT Data Middle East and Africa is enhancing and relaunching its retail practice, and introducing the Syntphony application portfolio.
The global retail market is constrained by a reliance on legacy systems that impact business agility and their ability to optimise operations, says Tony Nugent, retail practice manager: Middle East and Africa at NTT Data.
NTT Data research shows that just 56% of retailers believe their technology strategies are fully aligned to the business strategy needs.
At the same time, only 36% of retailers rate the progress of their digitalisation strategy to business vision needs as advanced; and only 38% strongly agree that their business continuity plan is effective and reliant.
“The competition for share of consumers’ wallet is hectic – so these challenges are particularly important,” says Nugent.
For retailers, digital innovation dominates their business agenda, driven by a need to adequately meet consumer needs.
Their top business objectives, according to the NTT Data research, is digital transformation, growth in revenue and profit, customer experience (CX) and innovation.
The top enablers for improving CX over the next three years are digital-first channel offering, AI solutions and predictive analytics.
Nugent explains that retailers are exploring ways to improve their business operations. The traditional cycle is to optimise efficiencies and technology, transform infrastructure and approach, and innovate for the future. Underpinning this cycle are data-driven insights to validate where technology will enable the business strategy.
In terms of infrastructure, most retailers have already migrated their systems to the cloud, and their applications to a software-as-s-service offering.
Most retailers acknowledge that CX is vital, but they are not hitting the mark, the research finds: 65% say that CX is weak link in their portfolio. “There is a long way to go, and a lot of South African retailers are still behind the curve.”
A key way of improving CX is to look at how employees interact with customers, Nugent says.
This means that improving employee experience (EX) in terms of employee well-being, productivity and effective collaboration is the number two CX business objective for the next couple of years.
This could be as simple as giving them a simple user interface, offering integration advice and virtual learning assistance, AI and machine learning-driven support, and access to knowledge management systems.
However, 32% of retailers are not employing any of these tools, the NTT Data research shows.
AI is starting to make a positive impact on improved personalisation, increased efficiency and a streamlined user experience, and improved customer retention.
For retailers, the top benefits of AI automation are in improved experience, improved efficiency, and cost reduction.
The NTT Data retail practice has a history of strong relationships with South African retailers.
Going forward, the business unit will include retail specialists in all the solution areas. “We will build the capability, where a group of people will focus on retail, working with the retailers, and with a very good knowledge of retail.”
This will enable the company to offer a complete range of solutions.
“Being part of NTT Data means we can springboard into this new vertical quickly.”
Syntphony is the product portfolio that NTT Data has developed globally for the retail vertical.
The range includes 38 different application products.
The software solutions offer low deployment costs and reduced time to market, thanks to a modular design that allows different solutions to be added as needed.
Key benefits include a module and unified platform, omnichannel integration, centralised control and customisation for regional specifics.
“What’s important is the it is NTT Data’s intellectual property (IP), so we have control about how we supply, price and support the solutions.”
Syntphony has been built to accelerate time to market and make business more efficient, Nugent says. It can offer increased scale with proprietary end-to-end products, generating synergies and cost efficiencies.
Ready-to-use solutions in the NTT Data Retail practice include unified commerce, resources management, advanced AI analytics, seamless customer service, process automation and frictionless payment solutions.