How Microsoft Cloud for Retail is Unlocking Holistic Customer Insights?

A scroll through the timeline of technological advancements will demonstrate how retail industries across the global region have experienced dramatic disruptions. They are turning towards the adoption of digital technologies, equipping themselves with the necessary resilience and agility to survive and thrive.

The urgency of digital business transformation has never been this fast, and enormous. The retail industry, alone, is manifesting immense growth, as showcased in the 2023 forecast by National Retail Federation (NRF). Retail sales are expected to experience steady growth from 4% to 6% this year, hitting an astonishing revenue generation of $5.13 trillion and $5.23 trillion. All these evolving economic conditions continue to sway the retail market as budget-conscious shoppers are infused with a sense of ease and nurturing as they travel through the buying journey.

This year, Microsoft Industry Cloud is aiming at empowering customers and employees to adapt to the changing business landscapes. With the inclusion of industry-specific solutions, here is a look at how recent innovations in Microsoft Cloud are disrupting the retail industry.

Microsoft Cloud enters the retail industry

Retail is amongst the most agile and innovative industries. Successful retailers are quick at adjusting themselves according to customer needs. The inclusion of the Microsoft Cloud encourages customer data to create personalization based on AI-generated analytics to forecast sales and optimize inventory.

The recent wave of Microsoft Cloud for Retail incorporated the Smart Store Analytics solution. This smart store analytics is primarily initiated for the store managers to holistically view the KPIs, data visualizations, and data science models for optimal decision-making.

AiFi works in collaboration with Microsoft Azure, which captures anonymized data through the shopper’s journey in real-time. It further understands:

• Customers’ interactions with the products displayed on shelves
• Reaction of shoppers to Promotions and communications
• What choices do they make, in terms of products displayed and purchases made

With the release of Smart Store Analytics solutions, retail will optimize store layout, product catalog, and shelf placement for peak performance.

On the other hand, Store Operations Assist ensures increased employee productivity by automating business processes such as inventory counts, stock audits, store walks, shift change checks, incident reporting, and safety audits.

Store managers can digitally review and provide feedback, support associates, and see their store’s performance. With this release, organizations can enjoy additional support and enhanced integration with Microsoft Teams’ front-line worker apps.

Exploring the Vast Horizons of Collaboration and Integration

Microsoft Cloud for retail brings together different data sources across the retail value chain and connects experiences throughout the shopper journey using the capabilities of Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Azure.

• Transform the shopping experience through data analytics and store technology to create more engaged shoppers with stronger lifetime value.
• Create an agile, resilient, and sustainable supply chain by connecting data across your ecosystem to identify issues and optimize performance.
• Equip your frontline workforce with solutions that increase customer satisfaction while reducing the burden on your frontline so you can invest in your team’s growth.​
• Realize the true value of your data by unifying disparate data and ecosystems across the shopper journey, uncovering insights and optimization throughout.

In all, retailers can automate monotonous tasks, thereby freeing up employees’ time to focus on more strategic and customer-centric activities.

Dynamics Solution and Technology | Easing Development with a Unified Experience

Microsoft commits to providing a unified experience, ensuring seamless deployment of Microsoft Cloud for Retail. Nevertheless, it is natural for first-time Dynamics 365 users to come across challenges and hindrances that may slow it down. They may even struggle with functionalities, configurations, meeting pre-requisites and even migrating the data from the legacy systems thereby slowing down the deployment process.

However, the experts from Dynamics Solution and Technology ensure freedom from these challenges. Our personalized Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail offers a full spectrum of solutions that can benefit your retail business in terms of productivity, cost, efficiency, and growth; regardless of your business’s size, scale, and product, it offers. They begin by understanding the client data and then go ahead with the implementation plan, backed by a fully integrated support system. This gives us the ability to not only successfully deploy the software but also provide consultation and training to you and your employees, respectively.

Being Microsoft Gold Partners, our D365 deployment strengths are widely recognized in the Gulf and MENA region. Our work is to innovate and help transform the retail industry continues to expand. We are committed to creating an agile, resilient, and sustainable supply chain by connecting data across your ecosystem to identify and predict issues and optimize performance.

Are you looking for exponential growth in the retail industry? Contact today!