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Sprawling IT Infrastructure Stopping Retailers Offering Crucial Omni-Channel Experience


    New research from Ipanema Technologies, the industry leader in network solutions allowing enterprises to guarantee their application performance, reveals that most retailers (65%) struggle with getting the omni-channel right and cite underperforming technology, changing IT trends and the complex organizational infrastructure as the primary reasons.

    The customer challenge

    Retailers’ increasing focus on customers is driving the omni-channel challenge. They see the customer-centric experience as excellent customer service (58%), fast transactions (55%) and interchangeable purchase channels (49%) but with only 35% of respondents describing their customer experience as excellent, it is clear retailers are grappling with this challenge.

    The technology challenge

    Back-office technology underpins the delivery of the omni-channel experience but technology issues are hampering their efforts: a sprawling IT infrastructure (74%), business pressure to provide technology innovation (71%) and cost pressures.

    In addition, companies are wrestling with a host of IT priorities such as cloud deployment (57%) and mobile application development (55%), supply chain optimization (54%), requiring network design changes:

    • Increasing bandwidth (52%)
    • Server virtualization (52%)
    • Network architecture (47%)
    • Content delivery (43%)
    • Hybrid networking (39%)

    The application imperative

    The vast majority (76%) recognize the importance of excellent application performance but lack confidence in the ability of their IT infrastructure to deliver it (78%), roll out new applications (78%) or manage application SLAs (77%).

    In addition, retailers believe that guaranteeing consistent and high levels of application performance can have a major impact on:

    • Customer/shopper satisfaction (54%)
    • Employee productivity (50%)
    • Brand reputation (49%)
    • Company financial targets (41%)

    In fact, if retailers made significant improvements to their omni-channel approach by the end of the year, more than half would expect to see an increase in sales (55%), increased market share (47%), positive word of mouth (47%) and cost savings (46%).

    “The ultimate shopping experience depends on a robust omni-channel that delivers speed, Quality of Service and a seamless channel service. Guaranteeing the performance of key retail applications is the surest way to close the gap and deliver that experience”, comments Béatrice Piquer-Durand, VP Marketing, Ipanema Technologies.

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    About the research

    Loudhouse, an independent research agency based in London, interviewed 400+ IT decision-makers involved in networking in retail organizations – with at least 1,000 employees and 10 to 250+ global sites linked via WAN.

    About Ipanema Technologies

    With Ipanema, (re)discover simplicity to guarantee your application performance. For more information, please visit ipanematech.com