Get Ready For Retail Deployment As A Service

By Jim West, Vice President of Facilities Technology for Velociti

No longer an isolated, occasional event, technology deployment occurs almost continuously now, and retailers should be thinking about changing the way they plan, budget, manage, and support deployment cycles in this new world.

As a retailer, you know that technology becomes a more critical factor in the success of your business every day.

The cash register is receding. Customers pay with thumbprints, and sales associates wield tablets. Omni-channel commerce demands real-time alignment with the supply chain. Beacons offer proximity-aware promotions and traffic-flow intelligence. The sales floor, the warehouse, the truck fleet, and the consumer are all adopting new technology. And all of it must interact with the rest.

The cadence of change is only going to accelerate. More smartphones, tablets, and wearables. Virtual-reality kiosks and changing rooms. Giant digital signage. Voice controls and robots. As you read this, your customer experience is undergoing great transformation.

Given all this, technology deployment and support is more critical than ever. And the days of sourcing what appears to be the cheapest up-front sticker price are long gone. The technology life-cycle is non-stop: pilot, select, design, stage, install, train, go-live, support, repair, replace — and then repeat.

With so many departments involved — finance, human resources, operations, IT, and more — coordinating overlapping deployment cycles with different resellers and integrators can quickly become a costly, error-prone, managerial nightmare.

If continuous deployment is, in fact, the new normal, then perhaps it’s time to re-assess how you plan, budget, manage, and support deployment.

Many other company functions have gone the as-a-service route, swapping the peaks and valleys of capital expenditure for a predictable monthly Operating expense and a single pane of glass to monitor activity.

Deployment as a Service (DaaS) for retailers is the next logical progression. Not only does it offer budget relief and more transparent ROI, it captures operational learning and facilitates inter-departmental coordination.

For this approach to work, however, your vendor must be more than installers. They must:

• understand the features (and limitations) of all assets in use
• have design engineers on staff, both for configuration planning and for follow-up support
• be brand-agnostic, so that your choices are not limited
• maintain a 24/7 support desk with training and documentation
• enable warranty processing
• be familiar with hardware and software throughout the retail ecosystem, including fleets , distribution centers, and sales floors
• perform on-site service and provide rapid replacements
• offer customizable, real-time visibility via an online dashboard to monitor and manage system health

Regardless of a retailer’s size or segment, it should consider the benefits of DaaS for all technology investments in the future.