The retail landscape is changing dramatically. Driven in large part by the pandemic, the industry is evolving at a faster pace than ever before. We’re seeing the lines between online and in-store experiences blur and customer behaviors and expectations rapidly evolving. To compete with the availability and convenience of online shopping, brick-and-mortar stores are striving to create new, compelling in-store experiences, create greater brand differentiation, and foster stronger customer loyalty.
In response, many retail organizations are turning to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and location tracking to help them develop more autonomous, efficient operations, while also connecting customers’ digital and physical store shopping behaviors in a more personalized, meaningful way.
To help them rapidly succeed in their efforts, we are excited to announce today our new Smart Retail Framework – a collection of mix-and-match application components to enable the development, deployment, and management of smart retail applications at scale. In collaboration with key Vantiq partners – ISVs, systems integrators, and technology vendors including IBM, Infosys, Chooch AI, and Store Intelligence, the Vantiq Smart Retail Framework is supported by a growing end-to-end partner ecosystem, enabling transformative change that the retail industry has been hungry for.
Leveraging partner solutions like IBM’s Edge Application Manager and Hybrid Cloud for Retail, and Infosys Cobalt cloud offerings, the new framework enables key advancements that make the future of retail a clear reality today. For example, retailers can leverage real-time analytics to gain complete customer visibility from in-store and online shopping activities. By monitoring and automating customer tracking, personalized recommendations, dynamic item pricing, inventory visibility, and automated check-out, retailers can create distinctive in-store customer experiences that compete with the ease and convenience of shopping on digital storefronts.
Additionally, through edge-native applications that remove latency barriers, reduce costs, and enhance security, retailers can capture, manage, and leverage growing streams of data from IoT sensors, cameras, and mobile devices. This allows retail brands to improve data access speed and performance and paves the way for automating the real-time operations of retail stores.
The Vantiq Smart Retail Framework is based on a composable architecture, providing pre-packaged, readily deployable building blocks that enable highly customized, digitally-enabled retail use cases. By simplifying the development and deployment of autonomous retail applications, retailers can easily offer customers what they want and how they want it, and deliver cutting-edge capabilities such as:
- real-time customer loyalty programs
- smart inventory management
- dynamic pricing
- connected digital and physical shopping carts
- grab-and-go shopping
- virtual queuing
- AI-enabled safety and security
Our announcement today is an important first step in bringing the new Vantiq Smart Retail Framework to life. Together, with Vantiq ecosystem partners, we are unlocking the future of digital retail innovation – and we’re thrilled to witness the massive impact it will deliver. For more information, contact us at [email protected].