INFOGRAPHIC
The race to customer leadership
in retail Digital Transformation
Retailers are racing to adopt
Edge Computing and customerfacing
technologies to enhance
the customer experience. Vertiv
and global media company,
DataCenterDynamics,
interviewed 50 managers and
executives from the world’s
largest retail companies to
profile the progress of retail
Digital Transformation.
he interviews carried
T
out by Vertiv and
DataCenterDynamics profiled
the progress of retail Digital
Transformation. It showed some key
findings. Edge Computing is going to grow
over the next two years with companies
turning to cloud hosting for capacity, with
a 33% greater adoption for data centre
capacity supporting stores and a 87%
greater adoption for data centre capacity
supporting distribution centres.
In the next two years, the data centre
footprints will change, as there will be an
expected 20% increase for online retail,
a 10% increase for distribution, a 27%
decline for corporate activities and just a
0.9% decline for in-store activities.
All of the respondents said that online is
more critical and a large proportion, 91%,
said distribution is more critical, while just
23% said in-store is more critical.
Of the retailers questioned, 26% are
nascent, which means they are lagging
in Digital Transformation. These retailers
are beginning to adopt customer-centric
technology but rely almost exclusively on
the store channel. They are improving
distribution centre productivity and supply
chain control.
While 42% of retailers are emerging,
which means they are progressing in
Digital Transformation. They are
using multi-channel customers
strategies, integrating distribution
with customer channels and adding
IoT sensors and tracking to improve
productivity. And 32% of retailers are
developed and are leaders in Digital
Transformation. They are building
omni-channel strategies and providing
experiential customers interactions. They
are also integrating distribution with
customer channels and using Big Data
analytics, IoT devices, cloud computing
and rigorous security. ◊
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