Table of Contents
The Growing Challenges for Retailers
Retailers have been under increasing pressure for decades: online competitors, changing consumer behavior, market globalization, the pandemic, inflation, and politics all impact ongoing trade with increasing speed and consequence.
Adopting modern business processes quickly is key to meeting evolving consumer expectations and growing challenges in the business environment. Retailers need agility in all areas of the enterprise, including in systems supporting necessary business processes.
The Role of Cloud Solutions in Retail Agility
Cloud solutions are the perfect answer to gaining agility and speed. They are quick to adopt, evolve in features and capabilities continuously, are secure, and are easier to acquire than in the past, especially when compared with traditional, on-premise, in-house legacy solutions.
Overcoming Resistance to Cloud Adoption
Yet, convincing management is difficult. Compelling the retailer organization to embark on a cloud solution implementation has its challenges: current systems are good enough, there are no funds for a costly transition, people are not ready to give up the current status quo, the new solutions bring no additional functionality that is relevant, we can always wait until next year, etc.
While the above objections may seem logical, their impact and ultimate cost are enormous.
Current Systems Are Good Enough—Are They?
- Do you have support?
- What happens if the current system breaks?
- Who can fix it and at what cost (please consider the impact of a system outage delay as well)?
- Is the current system secure? Attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication with the rise of AI.
- Are you at risk of cyberattack threats? Are you at risk of social engineering attacks?
- Up-to-date solutions are current on resilience, defense, and security to meet today’s needs on GDPR, NIS2, and SOC2. Are you compliant?
There Are No Funds for a Costly Transition
- The cost of SaaS solutions and their implementations has been decreasing, making a transition a more affordable option.
- Ensure you keep an accurate picture of the total cost of maintaining legacy systems when comparing them to implementing and leveraging new cloud solutions.
- Relying on aging technology is difficult when you need skilled resources on old tech.
- Efficiency and automation are also significantly lower in earlier technology components, increasing your operational running costs.
- Old systems have no leverage on AI tech—missing an opportunity to reduce costs by introducing accelerated efficiency via AI.
People Are Not Willing to Give Up the Current Status Quo
Nobody ever is. Change is painful. It requires people to step into the new, the unfamiliar, outside the comfort zone. Yet, without change, growth does not happen. It is an inevitable part of life. Change and adopt or get left behind by competition ready and willing to grow quickly.
The New Solutions Bring No Relevant Additional Functionality
Lack of new relevant features is a common objection, especially with merchandising systems. Frankly, merchandising does today, in terms of business process, what it has done 10 years ago. It provides a solid foundation for the core merchandise functions.
However, the technology options relied on to support merchandising foundations are not equal. Legacy foundation systems are slow, labor-intensive to operate and maintain, including upgrades, and are expensive to extend with key functionality users actually need.
Modern systems are not only easier to adopt and operate, but they also continuously improve features and provide a safe, fast mechanism to extend functionality when needed. Oracle Retail Data Store (RDS) does exactly that with APEX low-code extensibility to quickly give your users extra functionality they need safely and securely.
We Can Always Wait Until Next Year
The total cost of waiting may not be obvious but should in all cases account for alternative costs in tech debt. With the true total cost in mind, waiting and doing nothing becomes a significantly less attractive option.
Take Action Today
Contact us to learn how Quickborn can help you improve your business performance by adopting the right tools quickly and efficiently!
