The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and transformed the retail industry forever. The charm and allure of glitzy retail stores fizzled out as 2020 changed lives and livelihoods. Retail chains closed down, people lost their jobs, and economies collapsed, bringing life to a standstill.

Driven by safety and convenience, consumers moved on to greener online shopping options. They chose to buy merchandise using curbside pickup, self-checkout, and buy online pickup in-store (BOPIS) options. Safety adherence, discounts, offers, detailed product information, quick service, and customer experience became factors that triggered customer loyalty. Fast forward to 2021, most of these options still seem to be holding their charm and customers have gotten used to the convenience these options offer.

Cloud to the Rescue

Cloud infrastructure empowers retailers by optimizing and streamlining business processes to keep up with the growing demand in a cost-efficient way. It is a reliable and secure option, providing seamless interoperability with embedded machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities.

This is why top retailers worldwide are swiftly moving their existing on-premises retail applications to the Oracle retail cloud. In fact, Gartner forecasts that worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow by 18.4% to reach $304.9 billion in 2021 from $257.5 billion in 2020.

Reduce Cost, Accelerate E-commerce

Now don’t worry if you do not have an abundant technology budget. You will still not lag behind.

The Oracle Retail Cloud comes at a fraction of the cost when compared to on-premises retail solutions. It accelerates e-commerce, optimizes business processes, and improves customer experience cost-efficiently.

The Oracle cloud implementation reduces operating expenses by eliminating the need to own and manage hardware, installations, testing, and QA environments. Hence the costs involved in hosting and supporting on-premises systems and teams vanish entirely.

Oracle retail cloud offers immense flexibility with its pay-as-you-go pricing model. You can enter and exit the SaaS world as and when you like without any strings attached.

The Oracle retail cloud enables you to scale up resources during peak seasons and scale down during dry spells. This feature reduces costs and risks associated with resource burden, operational redundancy, and cybersecurity. By providing instant access to the latest upgrades and release cycles, the Oracle retail cloud helps you stay on top of your game without additional installations or costs.

Enhance Omnichannel Experience

In today’s digital-first era, a shopper checks out social media reviews and visits the website to assess the product before buying from your physical, mobile, or online store. Half the purchase decision is made during his journey through various online channels. Hence omnichannel excellence is no longer just an option. It is the need of the hour.

Oracle retail cloud facilitates convenient, quick, and hassle-free omnichannel experiences without any technical snags. It provides real-time inventory visibility and memorable personalized experiences through the seamless integration of e-commerce, point-of-service (POS), customer relationship/engagement systems, order management, and loyalty systems. The embedded Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning ensure that personalized omnichannel experiences, offers, and loyalty programs are optimized for hassle-free redemption.

Streamline and Optimize the Supply Chain

According to a recent Gartner survey, 65% of supply chain professionals believe that cloud computing is a source of significant competitive advantage to retailers. A well-optimized supply chain plays a vital role in the success of omnichannel e-commerce.

Oracle retail cloud strengthens omnichannel capabilities and supply chain responsiveness at the lowest possible cost. It enables retailers to forecast, plan and implement supply chain strategies according to the demand in all sales channels. Equipped with embedded artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies, it simplifies and optimizes supply chain operations.

Oracle retail cloud facilitates transparent collaboration with ecosystem partners, thereby improving sales, accelerating time to market, cutting costs, reducing inventory (to up to 30%), and earning customer trust and goodwill.

Augment Planning and Optimization

In this new age, the e-commerce ecosystem has dramatically shifted from being a product-centric environment to a customer-centric one. Hence, it’s high time you plan and optimize business processes accordingly.

Prioritize financial and merchandise planning, capacity management, assortment, and space optimization for enhanced customer experience, order fulfillment, and delivery.

Oracle retail cloud is an expert in integrated retail planning, international functionality, and support. It deftly boosts operational efficiency and optimizes assortments by integrating customer segmentation, assortment, merchandising, financial planning, order fulfillment, replenishment, and delivery.

Boost Data-driven Merchandising

Revamping merchandise strategy is super important if you want to sustain and stay ahead of the curve in today’s competitive environment. You need data and insights to craft and deploy efficient merchandising plans based on consumer behavior, market forces, and your supply chain scenario.

Oracle retail cloud has been deemed by IDC MarketScape as the number 1 leader in the Worldwide Retail Merchandise Operations Management Solutions 2020-2021 (Vendor Assessment 1).

Oracle automates merchandising by leveraging embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to tackle retail merchandising scale and complexity.

Oracle retail Merchandising System

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Modernize, Analyze, and Collaborate

Leading global retailers are adopting Oracle retail cloud to modernize and empower their retail operations. The cloud migration improves seamless collaboration and support between employees in marketing, back office, Point of Sale (POS), supply chain, quality control, and delivery systems.

As employees are digitally enabled and empowered, they provide exceptional customer experiences, thus converting one-time buyers to brand loyalists.

Oracle retail cloud supports retailers with advanced analytics via dashboards that provide real-time insights and data. Retail analytics and science help business leaders make effective data-driven decisions without any extra cost.

Here is a summary of all the factors you need to consider while making the decision to move to cloud:

Conclusion

Judicious retailers can survive the current disruption by quickly embarking on digital transformation initiatives. Cloud adoption came to their rescue by increasing business agility, enhancing business continuity, cutting costs, and improving ROI.

Brace yourself for progress by breaking free from legacy system problems. Focus your time and effort on innovation and business expansion plans while we handle your Oracle retail cloud migrations and integrations seamlessly.

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  1. Beyond Omnichannel

  2. Embrace the future of retail with Curbside Pickup

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