Thanks to cloud technologies, business automation is becoming increasingly accessible for the retail industry. It connects applications and siloed systems, driving efficiencies, enabling excellent customer service, boosting sales, and reducing costs. However, there is still much to navigate. We recently spoke with our business automation expert, Jesper Lillelund, who has a strong background in the retail industry, to gain his insights on how retailers use business automation today.
Here, we highlight key points from our conversation, along with practical use cases for automation that produce real results for retailers today.
Jesper Lillelund: Several years ago, business automation was primarily about robotic process automation (RPA), where a robot could read from a screen or push a button, for example. Today, business automation is a much broader concept. Cloud services and solutions make retail business automation much easier. Business automation, by applying artificial intelligence (AI), helps retailers do things more efficiently, reduce costs, and win customers' trust and loyalty by providing excellent customer service.
One of the recent examples of process automation that I discussed was with a retailer that focuses on electronics. This high-end electronics retailer started using an AI-powered app that allows store employees to quickly find answers to customer questions. For instance, if a customer asks, "Can I get spare parts for Product X?" the employee can type the question into the app and provide an accurate answer along with details on how long it will take to get the parts, share technical information or a product manual.
In my opinion, business automation is the glue that links data from anywhere, enhancing both the customer and employee experience.
Jesper Lillelund: Retailers are busy. They are often focused on external demands and immediate operational needs, such as managing inventory, meeting customer expectations, handling sales, and addressing market competition, leaving little time to stop and deeply examine internal processes.
Additionally, retailers typically use a variety of disconnected tools and platforms, such as various marketing tools, sales or CRM solutions, e-commerce platforms, recommendation engines, inventory management systems, and more. Each of these systems often operates in isolation, creating silos of data and processes that are not easily integrated. This lack of integration can make the prospect of business automation seem overwhelming because it involves consolidating data from all these disparate sources to achieve meaningful results.
Fortunately, this isn't the case anymore, but many people are simply unaware of the advancements, which I completely understand. It is hard to keep up with the continuous technical evolution.
Finally, budget can also be a blocker, necessitating a well-defined business case for approval. However, modern technologies enable organizations to start small and grow by demand, making it easier to address this challenge. A good example is when we recently met a customer facing such a challenge. We agreed to deliver a prototype and proof of concept (POC) to demonstrate the value of automating some of their manual administrative tasks. It took us just two days to deliver the first version to test, which surprised them and eliminated all their doubts.
Jesper Lillelund: Business automation for retailers should be focused on the end-user. The first level of end-users should always be the customer. It's important to ask yourself: How can we improve the customers’ experience? How can we enable our frontline workers to enhance customer experience, loyalty, and sales? Could better employee onboarding or freeing up admin time for customer service make a difference?
The next level of end-users is your employees — one of the most valuable assets you already have. To define where to start, consider asking yourself: What business automation would enhance our employees' efficiency and job satisfaction?
Another important prioritization criterion is time to value. Assess which automation projects can deliver quick wins and tangible benefits in the shortest amount of time. This approach helps in building momentum and demonstrating the value of automation initiatives early on.
Jesper Lillelund: Absolutely. Successful retailers focus on enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, increasing sales and overall customer experience. Especially in logistic and customer services we often see a great potential for improving on these parameters.
The technological evolution in the last years has made it possible for organizations to reclaim their competitive edge and use technology to differentiate. We see a change from using ISV solutions to building enterprise solutions based on low-code platforms like Power Platform. This strategy is faster, more cost-effective and most importantly composable and scalable. It gives retailers the possibility to use technology to support their overall business strategy and give them a competitive edge and stay ahead of competition. With traditional ISV solutions, retailers depend on standard features and may have to wait for needed functionalities to become standard or customize ISV solutions resulting in high operational costs, high development costs, high supplier dependency and complexity. Luckily technology has evolved to support retailers to focus on the specific business needs instead of trying to fit their business into a defined technology.
Customer experience is a top priority for most retailers, and great customer service is crucial for overall customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. When issues arise in the customer relationship, retailers have a unique opportunity to transform these moments into positive experiences, potentially turning customers into future top ambassadors and promoters for their brand. Here are three key elements for improving customer experience related to inquiries:
To summarize, I would like to say that we also see other great use cases for intelligent automation in areas such as operations, finance, and employee experience. However, the key takeaway is that technology has matured to support almost any business need and strategy. You just need to be adept at formulating the pain points and prioritizing them.
Jesper Lillelund: Yes, exactly! Once you have clarity on which use cases your organization should prioritize, the technology part is usually not a big problem anymore, even though it should be used smartly. I usually advise working with Microsoft’s Power Platform stack, especially Power Automate. It is a low-code technology that seamlessly connects your existing systems, so the issue of siloed systems is no longer a problem. You can implement incremental automation improvements quickly without overhauling your current infrastructure. This versatility makes it ideal for addressing technical debt and outdated software. Power Automate streamlines workflows, enhances traceability, and ensures efficiency, making the automation process swift and effective.
Jesper Lillelund: As mentioned earlier, the identification of the most valuable business automation use cases is the first and most challenging, yet crucial step. If prioritization is done wrongly, the risks of wasted resources and missed opportunities are high. There are two ways to approach this:
At Columbus, we often help retailers turn their strategic goals and current obstacles into potential opportunities for automation. Once we collaborate on that list, we can prioritize which ones to focus on and enable with technologies such as Power Automate.
To make it as easy as possible for you, we package this into one offering, which includes a one-week intensive through workshops designed to: