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their physical assets to keep pace with
online offerings.
3. Don’t overlook data security
The retail sector continues to be one
of the most targeted industries for
cyberattacks. Since January 2017, at
least 15 retailers have been victims of a
cyberattack, including high-profile names
such as Adidas and Dixons Carphone.The
global exposure of a sporting event like
the Tour de France puts everyone involved
at risk from any number of cyberattackers
looking to share, trade, or manipulate
data. Its critical information is protected
from these various threats but without
compromising the flow of real-time data
that makes the event so compelling.
The Tour de France employs a next-
generation security platform that
exclusively operates in the cloud,
allowing an almost instant response
time to security threats. Another
secret to this success is the level of
collaboration across the race, with
partners and sponsors working closely
together to ensure protection is airtight.
Responsibility is collective.
And this ethos extends across all
industries, particularly in retail, where
the omnichannel approach is so critical.
After all, if a customer doesn’t trust your
ecommerce website to keep their details
safe, why would they feel inclined to visit
your physical store?
A retailer cannot abdicate
accountability for data security –
it’s the entire business that needs
to own this responsibility, not just
the IT department. Ultimately, it all
comes down to owning the customer
relationship, whether that’s digital
or physical, which in turn, drives a
consistent experience. And security and
trust play a fundamental role in
this relationship.
4. Departmental alignment
Within retail, there’s often a big
disconnect between the IT function and
the rest of the business: all things technical
are dealt with in silos by the IT function,
which makes it impossible for the wider
business to support omnichannel.
Over the course of a year, a professional
cycling team relies on much more than
the riders in the saddles. The logistical
operations involved in a race like the
Tour de France means everyone has to
be working from the same rulebook,
whether it’s the drivers ferrying the team
around France, the physios dealing with
the aches and pains of riders cycling for
up to six hours per day, or the caterers
keeping everyone fully fuelled during the
21-day tour.
This level of collaboration means a
professional cycling team is governed
much like a business.
For many companies, its ecommerce
presence sits separate to the main retail
function and all too often, a retailer’s
website is not treated and managed as a
shop, but as a piece of technology – an
area invariably dealt with by IT. How can
www.intelligentcio.com
FINAL WORD
you foster a true omnichannel approach
when there’s no incentive internally to
do so?
5. Focus on creating experiences by
empowering your employees
Telling stories and creating experiences
are the ingredients that will ensure the
survival and eventual blossoming of our
bricks and mortar retail stores.
We all know about the big players like
Apple, Victoria’s Secret and Ikea, who
mix meaningful with immersion, make
personalisation accessible and intuitive
for everyone and underpin it all with a
resonant human touch.
In a similar vein, one of the main
reasons the Tour de France attracts
such a large and varied audience is
down to its ability to tell compelling
stories. The vast amount of data
collected every second means even
the most fleeting and subtle tales
won’t go untold.
The secret to achieving these
benchmarks lies with the employees.
Retailers need to strike the right
balance between the human element
of a customer interaction and the
technology its staff are using to
facilitate that interaction.
Technology is meant to be an enabler
and a supporting element in the
customer relationship, however, it’s
starting to become the primary point
of delivering information to the
customer, often at the loss of that
all-important human element. n
“
SINCE JANUARY
2017, AT LEAST 15
RETAILERS HAVE
BEEN VICTIMS OF
A CYBERATTACK.
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