Leveraging the cloud to transform customer journeys through connected retail

There has been a huge shift in consumer behavior. On the demand side, the buying power demographics have shifted with more personalization and technology-driven engagement. On the supply side, companies are building more resilience and improved processes, particularly with the lessons learned from the pandemic.

In this evolving milieu, brands are faced with a spectrum of challenges, which range from inventory management to data security and managing demand and supply data to drive growth and profits. Despite these, at the end of the day, businesses seek to deliver on the ever-changing expectations of the always-on customer and the cloud and technology can go a long way in enabling them to do so.

Innovation Next, presented by Google Cloud, brought together a diverse panel of leaders from the retail industry to share their experiences and describe use cases on the theme ‘Leveraging the cloud for connected retail’. The panel comprised Jayen Mehta, Chief Operating Officer, Amul Ltd; Sanjay Tripathi, Chief Digital Officer, Bestseller India; Siddharth Mehta, Chief Strategist, Rajesh Exports and Vignesh Gadiyar, Key Account Executive, Consumer Internet, Google India.

The end game for most retailers is to ensure that the digital experience of their customers is truly characterized by zero friction and optimized for digital shopping in an intuitive way. As brands have begun putting the customer at the centre of their strategy, leveraging the power of the cloud enables them to deliver bespoke experiences in terms of personalization, recommendations, awareness and experiences.

Acknowledging the changing scenario, Vignesh Gadiyar pointed out some key ways in which the cloud has helped retail conversion. “In terms of economics, the cloud enables combining multiple categories to get the best deal. Secondly, it facilitates convenience through channel-less experiences. The third benefit is around customer experiences, a domain in which numerous innovations have taken place. Fourth, and most important, is the security of transactions and data,” he said, adding, “These are four pillars where there is a lot of change taking place and cloud is getting leveraged in a very big way to bring in more customers and maximize conversions.”

While most brands use customer needs as a compass to drive strategic plans and investments across different functions, Jayen Mehta elaborated on how Amul’s use of technology in the value chain starts from the producers. “As a brand, while we are customer centric, our value chain begins with the 3.6 million milk-producing farmers of Gujarat who contribute 27 million liters twice a day from across 18,600 village co-op societies, every day. We leverage cloud and technology not just to meet the requirements of the end customer and win their trust but to also seamlessly engage the producer and synchronize all aspects of Amul’s milk business on a daily basis,” he said. His company’s mission was value for many and value for money through use of cloud, IoT, AI, etc., all along the value chain.

When it comes to gold as a product, most customers still find it difficult to go online and buy gold or jewellery; they prefer a touch and feel experience. Offering an illustration of how retailers in this segment can leverage the cloud to improve collaboration and communication within their organization, Siddharth Mehta said, “Cloud and systems can form the base for an organization like us, which has operations across the world. Connectivity becomes a requirement, with regard to inventory management and information flows as it streamlines operations. Technology and cloud also enable connecting within the organization so that every employee is aware of what subordinates and seniors are doing and the flow of information becomes easy.”

For the online apparel and high fashion sector, the need of the hour is to provide a seamless experience for the customer, irrespective of whether they approach the digital platform or brick and mortar. “Whatever a customer can do while in a shop, should be possible on the B2C site or WhatsApp or Facebook or Instagram. That is what customers seek all along the purchase journey from discovery to consideration to evaluation and finally, completing the purchase,” said Sanjay Tripathi. He elaborated that in a physical store, there is a fashion consultant to guide a customer through the journey. So, online, his company uses data available with it to guide the customer. “If you have shopped with us before, we use your purchase history to provide a personal recommendation, based on your preferences. In fact, at every step of the purchase journey, digital technology plays a role.”

The discussion also touched upon challenges, such as sharing of customer data between different companies in the retail and manufacturer ecosystem, building trust and customer confidence by providing relevance and value and cost optimization using cloud or hybrid cloud to drive operational efficiency to realizing positive business outcomes. The panel also discussed the challenges of data availability and mining of data in the event of analogue links in the value chain and gaps in the after-sales journey that need to be tackled more efficiently. In retail journeys, with always-on customers and no downtime, cloud security and reliability could also become a concern.

Google has been working to address various challenges and concerns. From a customer experience perspective, alongside offering cloud, it leverages its AR and VR capabilities to bring products, like furniture, into a potential customer’s house virtually. For other products, like groceries, where tracking can be concerning, Google enables secure tracking.

The technology giant also facilitates operational efficiency in terms of ensuring that the right product is available at the right price and at the right place and offers customer support solutions too. Lastly, in terms of security and reliability, Google offers various features and benefits alongside its cloud services that deliver protection from threats, using the same technology that it uses to protect billions of users on Gmail, YouTube, etc. and built-in controls that enable customers to be compliant from a regulatory and policy perspective.

Vignesh Gadiyar concluded, “We envisage exciting times on the horizon as interesting use cases are emerging in assisted buying. Engagement and discovery-based buying is evolving rapidly through video, voice and vernacular mediums and technology is also working towards ensuring device-agnostic experiences so that retailers can offer uniform experiences to all their audiences.”

Moneycontrol journalists were not involved in the creation of the article.