Talk at Retail Business Technology Expo

If one point kept being recalled at last week’s Retail Business Technology Expo and Cards & Payments Solutions (RBTE) event, it is our changing face of modern retail. Multichannel, omni-channel, c-tailing, total retailing, u-commerce, seamless systems,

they are all the emerging reality and one which poses unavoidable questions for retailers.

Steve Rothwell, CEO of digital voucher specialists Eagle Eye Solutions, says, “I think the mentality of bricks and mortar retailers has to change. They have always lived in a world where they could wait a year to make a decision on technology but they do not have that time now because their online rivals can do something in a week.”

Indeed warnings of being left behind resonated most from speeches across the Earls court halls, whilst IBM’s research showed some positive trends too; such as the fact that trust in retailers is rising and that retail stores still have the greatest influence on consumers when researching products, but Withers argued that traders could still communicate better across their multiple channels.

It is very difficult to know what technology investments will be worthwhile for the future and it was certainly true that not all of the eye-catching front-end technologies on display at the event were wholly convincing.

For every impressive mobile & tablet POS or interactive digital display, there was a far from realistic augmented reality demonstration or a slightly creepy facial recognition device. All of these systems will be altered, improved or made redundant given enough time but most platform providers at the show argued that the back-office systems that are being created now are designed to stand the test of time.

K3’s Head of Business Development Tony Byrant believes that retailers need to embark on fundamental change in order to properly utilise all the efficiencies of these new technological advances.

It seems that retail is in the process of breaking down barriers; in the way it communicates with customers, in terms of front-end innovation and in the processes that allow it to operate within this new omni-channel environment.