Segments & Industry Focus
Customization, personalization, analytics and faster product discover driven by in store, online and mobile technologies is transforming fashion retail
In a technology-conscious market, fashion retailers are adopting technology to grow and retain customers
Retail management in fashion is changing. Retail fashion in apparel, jewelry, accessories, bags, wallets, footwear, specialty apparel such as sports, outdoor, performance, etc is extremely competitive with slender profit margins. Retailers are increasingly using technology to maintain competitiveness and address shrinking profit margins.
Technology is helping transform customer-facing processes such as targeted marketing, customer engagement, ease of product selection coupled with customization, promotional content, loyalty benefits and customer relationship management.
For fashion retailers, meeting rapid changes in demand in the luxury, high street, off-the-shelf and custom-fit category based on seasonal trends is a challenge. In a trend-conscious market, fashion retailers must ensure the fastest and most accurate delivery of products from suppliers (factories) to warehouses and stores.
In addition fashion retailers are expanding their footprint to reach global markets. They need to bring a better understanding of customer experience, personalization, signage, billing, etc that meet the needs of local cultures and combine it with attributes that have built the brand’s global identity and success.
Accely’s partnerships with leaders across Europe, Americas, Australia and Asia-Pac have helped harvest and generate best in class technology competencies for fashion retailing. Using our technological experience and expertise, customers are combining the data richness of the online world with mobile technologies and physical in-store needs for a seamless cross channel experience. Our global engagements have ensured a deeper understanding of customer needs, trends, merchandizing, customization, faster billing systems, digital commerce, social media, loss detection and prevention systems, energy management and CSR.
Accely’s focus on end-to-end information technology services includes application and infrastructure management encompassing:
Achieving high performance in fashion hinges on targeting specific market segments, learning everything you can about them and making them believe that only your products and services can confirm their sense of self-worth. That, in turn, requires constant innovation and novelty to create new ideas and trends. It also requires exceptional agility. High performance, indeed, requires outstandingly swift and streamlined operating models and exceptional supply chain efficiencies.
High performance also requires true multichannel management, which the segment’s leading companies are now starting to address. They are beginning to recognize that stores, catalogs, call centers, kiosks and even websites are no longer sufficient.
To achieve high performance in the future, companies will need to turn customers into advocates, spreading their message by sharing opinions and collaborating with their customers’ online friends—as well as becoming part of customers’ social networks as well. Moreover, companies that anticipate customer aspirations and sustain excitement with a constant flow of relevant innovations will be able to position themselves well ahead of the game.
Our investments in Point of sale solutions, cloud technologies, digital platforms for e-commerce, social media, mobile computing and tablet-based applications are helping transform fashion retail operations. Retail customers are benefitting from Accely’s Fashion Lab for the Future, an investment that creates applications and services using cutting edge social media, niche technologies like augmented reality and creates proof of concepts. For an industry that thrives on change, Accely is already one step into the future.
Accely’s ongoing business research has revealed that top companies in all industries share a “competitive essence” made up of three building blocks of high performance: market focus and position, distinctive capabilities, and performance anatomy.
These building blocks describe the organizational mindset that dictates how—and how well—an organization fulfills its strategic objectives. Our recent analysis of global grocery companies focused on understanding the six elements that make up the building blocks of high performance in this industry segment.
Food retailers compete in on razor slim margins. Products move at a fast pace. Distribution and warehouse management are critical operations. Plus real-time inventory, visibility and utopian replenishment are major challenges. Dynamics of grocery business is changing rapidly with changing consumer behavior, blurring of channels, consolidation of regional players, experimentation with new formats, increased need for analytics etc. As consumers prefer more personalization, wide variety, fresh products and better convenience, it’s now the grocer’s imperative to differentiate themselves in the entire value chain, especially in the areas of merchandising, supply chain, inventory management, and customer experience.
With their strategic sights on growth, leading grocers need fresh, new business models. They’re adding more private labels to their mix while juggling online shopping’s challenges in transportation and delivery. What’s more, they are learning to differentiate themselves with smarter in-store shopping experiences.
We are helping grocers grow their businesses. Our team understands that smart management of in-store receiving, tracking, and planning is important. We know real-time supply chain visibility is a must, and that grocers need better management of costly promotional programs.
Our solutions help optimize prices, incorporate intelligent inventory planning and implement high-powered POS systems to speed checkout and enhance the customer experience.
We, at Accely, have a consumer driven approach to address changing needs of grocery retailers. Blended with our domain knowledge, technology expertise, and delivery excellence, we provide innovative and customized industry specific solutions to your business.
Accely’s deep understanding of the grocer’s pain points in fresh item management, grocery supply chain, merchandising, multichannel, personalization, customer experience and analytics, has led to multiple benefits for clients through innovative, successful business and technical solutions for their entire retail value chain.
Overcome competition from similar companies, and outmaneuver mass-market retailers, even with their scale and cost advantages.
In specialty retailing, how well you capitalize on a successful niche defines your competitive edge. But standing out, remains a big challenge in markets that are highly fragmented. We can help.
Specialty retailers face the daunting challenge of competing with discount and online-only retailers who offer broad selection of merchandize and low prices. To succeed in this hyper-competitive business environment, specialty retailers need innovative ways to compete and invest in offering products and services at compelling price points while delivering exceptional customer experience across all channels and touch points. Also considering that this segment is the most affected by macro economic factors, it is imperative for specialty retailers to continue to rely on technology powered business transformation and efficiency initiatives to survive and succeed.
Understanding the need for unique solutions that can seamlessly adapt to the business environment, Accely delivers the same by blending domain knowledge, technology expertise, and delivery excellence best practices. We have worked with multiple leading specialty retailers across their value chain and built up a competency portfolio in key focus areas, some of which are listed below.
With our IT expertise and experience in helping clients worldwide achieve customer focus and workforce efficiency, we’re ready to help your company attain new levels of operational efficiency.
Give your health and wellness business a technology boost and ensure greater fitness to meet changing customer needs and beat growing competition
Worldwide, pharmacies as a business are changing. Over the years, they have been transformed into sophisticated health and wellness retail businesses. The change has been driven by increasing consumer consciousness in healthy living and a growing demand for organic foods, nutritional supplements, and health and wellbeing enhancers.
Drugstore formats have become broader, highly regulated in Europe and the US, and are rapidly adding ancillary services to their offerings. Today’s health and wellness retailers have optical services, primary medical screening facilities and attached clinics with doctors that attend to minor ailments. The level of customer engagement and interaction is much higher than for traditional pharmacies. Pharmacists, who are highly trusted by their customers, are able to influence product choice, are more involved in relationship building and need to free up their time from products and shelf management to customer management.
Customers, on the other hand, are rapidly adopting mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, demanding greater conveniences from their health and wellness retailers. They want personalization and customization; they are migrating to mobile text-based reminder solutions for their medication and to refill their prescriptions. They are using social media to understand pricing, treatments, services and want more value.
On the business front, the traditional global giants of retail are acquiring small and midsized pharmacy players to gain access to new markets. The M&A activity is creating a fresh demand for application integration, process standardization and IT infrastructure rationalization.
The health and wellness retail business is at the threshold of a major IT transformation: system integration, application development, data management, analytics, mobile technologies and customer management tools are proliferating. Business processes are being automated and technology-driven patient care is aimed at improving the outcome of medication.
Accely’s global experience in retail pharmacy and in the health and wellness business has helped its customers grow, expand to newer markets, adopt technology to understand patient needs and improve bottom lines. As the customer emphasis on health and fitness grows, retailers will need to innovate, bringing services to consumers in their homes, office and on the go. Store design and experience will change as wellness foods get priority on store shelves. Quick, reliable, rich and interactive information on wellness products and healthy lifestyles at the point-of-purchase will drive buying decisions. Assisting health and wellness retailers in this transformational journey is Accely.
How to Remain Profitable When Shoppers Are Fickle and Costs Remain High
Department stores may be the bedrock of retail and form the all-important anchor of many shopping centers and malls. But today, retailers need to work not only harder, but smarter, to remain profitable. To survive, they need to perfect merchandising and marketing strategies and to target high-value customers.
Our business research shows that department stores and general merchandisers operate in a highly volatile environment. Success can be fleeting. A typical industry cycle among these retailers is just three to five years. Department stores and general merchants are affected by the same market forces:
The greatest growth in the department store and general merchandising segment is occurring in developing markets, but lower levels of competition and market saturation in developing markets are also important. So are the opportunities to grow one’s store network in countries where land is more plentiful and less cost-prohibitive. This provides a tremendous opportunity for retailers looking to capture market share, grow their businesses and achieve high performance.
Our retail solutions provide department stores with the flexibility they need to succeed. We help stores maximize customer service and profits and meet changing consumer demands amid increased competition and complex supply chains. Our merchandising solutions include price optimization, category management, assortment planning, promotions and marketing.
Chains are dedicated to energizing the shopper experience, so we’ve created in-store CRM capabilities delivered via sales associates or self-service kiosks. Working with us to optimize their supply chains by applying principles of product lifecycle management, retailers are reducing by 25% the time required to bring products to the shelf.
By solving problems in all functional areas of retail—from store operations to back-office portals—we are helping department store managers reshape their organizations for new success and profits.
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