We live in a world where the virtual and real worlds are merging; the lines that differentiated them are now defining where we stand in the technological divide. Customers are getting exposed to advancement in technology more often than ever before and interfacing with them in an innovative and more effective way becomes necessary to keep them better engaged and sustain organizational growth. The dramatic adoption and evolution of the online world are creating existential challenges for conventional set-ups in retail industry.

Today’s shoppers expect a connected and interactive consumer experience from start to finish. As the competitive landscape is constantly evolving, innovation is needed to keep pace. For many companies, making their merchandise and brand story more attractive will continue to be a bigger challenge. Agility is a key factor for differentiation as it enables rapid development and deployment of new solutions.

Enter the Cloud! Cloud computing is a very effective solution for retailers to build capabilities quick enough to attract consumers; it allows for them to adapt their offerings to meet the expectations of today’s digitally connected consumers throughout their shopping experience. In addition,retailers will start to recognize cloud computing as a cost effective technique that can enable rapid adoption of the latest solutions.

The benefits of cloud computing for retail are significant some of them are:

Interacting With Consumers becomes more personal

Imagine a life when you are out shopping and you don’t have to go into the dressing rooms just to check if the clothing fits you, because the store is equipped with a mobile device that confirms if the size and style of that clothing is right for you. Using data available from mulitiple customer profile streams, retailers can predict the excat service and expectations of customers using cloud based data access and analytics in real time.

Flexibility to Scale up & Down When Required

Cloud based retail as a service solution; digital content management, supply chain and other process can be selectively released and pulled back. Cloud based solutions are very light on local hardware

and the costs are flexible to the exact usage and scale needed for the business. This lets you to bravely move business to more areas and scale down very fast if needed.

Developing solutions and communicating with customers & employees from a central place brings a lot of creative freedom and reduces go-to-market time and costs significantly

Remote Content Management

With the cloud hosting all the data and information you want to share with your retail staff and customers, you have the flexibility to control what to play and when to play them in all your display devices put up at your outlets. Many retail brands can make the display screen put up in the retail outlets to play brand content and product offers at their will. They can release them from their central / head office and pull the offers out or change campaigns as well from the comfort of their computers. Saving a lot of costs and complexities in the process.

Collaborative $ Multi Partner Engagements

Cloud gives access to multiple people. This lets multiple divisions; multiple brands or other partners access and operate the data available.Issues, ideas and opportunities can be hosted, accessed and resolved simultaneously. Many multi brand retail outlets right from a small grocer to large format retail aggregators can use this platform to bring about more agility and collaboration in driving their enterprises.

Global Reach, Local Control

Cloud efficiently centralizes operations with easy access to every one. Cloud allows you to deploy solutions and access them from any part of the world. Companies are using cloud networks to manage the merchandise sorting, tracking and procurements with less process and inventory costs. Developing solutions and communicating with customers and employees from a central place brings lots of creative freedom and reduces go-to-market time and costs significantly.

Cost-effective Streamlined Operations

Moving to cloud technology also allows retailers to save money on server maintenance. Given that retailers have some of the lowest budgets among all industries, they can use that budget for other things, such as opening a new store, taking on more employees and paying attention to the business itself.

Cloud supported Supply Chain Process

Not many retailers have adequate supply chain systems that are capable of handling their processes. However, with cloud supply chain, retailers can capture real-time information, as well as adjust to various conditions or even take advantage of new opportunities. Retail processes such as data tracking can be made easier through cloud technology. Many retailers see supply chain as a crucial area of focus, investing in a cloud collaboration platform that's specifically geared towards retailers could be of great benefit.

Real-time Reporting & Data Analytics

Most retailers are constantly dealing with big data hence cloud technology becomes handy in their day-to-day operations. In a cloud, a single server can host many virtual servers, slashing hardware costs. The virtual servers can scale on demand depending on the need for computer capacity. Data analytics programs and algorithms will help convert this real time data feed in to high quality and actionable information for better decision making and results.