Establishing a Strategic Business Case for IT Automation in Retail

2 Dec 2019
by Chirajeet Sengupta, Ashwin Venkatesan, Sarweshwer Gupta

The retail industry is grappling with widespread disruption. To remain relevant, retailers need to create business value – realized through seamless customer experience, significant operational efficiency, and improved workforce productivity. To achieve these outcomes and create sustainable stakeholder value, retailers need business-aligned IT automation, supported by integrated data flows and reengineered business processes.

Retailers need to leverage IT automation to drive broader business transformation rather than tethering it solely to IT cost metrics. In this approach, we lay out business objectives as the starting point, designing the automation strategy to realize outcomes across the business value chain.

IT modernization and business transformation are key to value-based delivery in retail and can deliver breakthrough outcomes such as superior customer experience and choice, new delivery and revenue channels, faster time to market, and effective monetization of digital assets.

In this report, we:

  • Make a case for business-led IT automation in the retail industry
  • Outline the business value continuum for retailers, exploring illustrative use cases across the retail value chain
  • Lay out IT performance indicators associated with retail operations and related use cases
  • Suggest key considerations for retailers as they implement IT automation as part of their broader business transformation

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