Leveraging Supplies and Efficiency in Business

These visibility sys­tems function most effectively when the people concerned with updating information and statuses are working in perfect and timely synchronization. It’s not the infrastructure investments as opposed to the behavioural invest­ments that have to be made to get a different part of the ecosystem aligned on becoming better in their processes and system architecture.

It is important for a brand to main­tain its reputation of having a great customer experience. The brand be­comes stronger only by what con­sumers and potential consumers ex­perience. The fundamental question is what is it that companies are trying to achieve by building a brand. Many companies are trying to build a lev­el of trust with its consumers. Thus, brand building and customer expe­rience go hand in hand and brands become stronger by building on the premise of customer experience. In fact, there are brands that do not spend on marketing and advertising, but by sheer investment in customer expe­rience, have managed to strengthen their name.

The online channel is going through its own evolution in terms of adoption. When you look at macro numbers in terms of internet penetration, people adopting mobile phones with data connections are in healthy numbers and therefore e-commerce will continue to grow. But while looking at the overall retail market, online purchasing is still a very small percentage of overall retail. Even in countries like the U.S., only eight percent of retail is online. In India, it is expected to hit two percent of retail by 2020. The question isn’t about being online or offline but how effectively the brand can provide a more seamless experience to their customers. It is really about creating a seamless consumer experience.

Online and offline will not continue to be seen as disparate channels but will start to converge towards becoming complementary channels, where people may choose to add products into a cart and then walk into a store, look at the product, and buy it online when they want to. The experience will have to move very seamlessly. The largest problem to solve there is for the brand to know more about their customer, which products of their web store were viewed and added by the customer and the retail executive can then suggest similar products to the customer when they walk into the store, creating a more meaningful experience as opposed to the executive starting from scratch. The next wave of information technology helping retail would be the ability to navigate a customer across their phone, across the web as well as the physical store and to identify their needs and provide services accordingly.

Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Urban Ladder is an online furniture store started in 2012, which offers an extensive array of furniture and home decor products.