Microsoft in retail: Empowering people through technology
Around the globe, leading retailers are redefining the way they do business with their customers. Using innovative technologies, they are finding new ways to respond to market trends, new avenues for meeting consumer preferences, and new opportunities to tailor each shopping experience to match every customer’s expectations.
The results are transforming the relationship between retailers and consumers, enabling retailers to deliver compelling, personalized experiences that inspire purchasing decisions and maximize revenue from each shopping trip. These new technologies also enable retailers to strengthen long-term loyalty and create lasting connections that increase sales—and profits—over the lifetime of the customer relationship.
Strategies, organization, motivation, and leadership all set the stage for business success. But to see results, you also have to give your people the right tools, information, and opportunities. Success ultimately comes down to your people and how well they can turn data into insight, transform ideas into action, and turn change into opportunity. We call a business that fosters a winning environment like this a “people-ready business.”
Leading retailers are fundamentally rethinking the very idea of the store itself, using a new generation of digital technologies—including state-of-the-art embedded operating systems, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, kiosks, and store-based wireless devices—to re-create the entire retail experience.
However, technology alone can’t solve business problems. But given the right tools, people can.