A retail report released by Stratix and IHL ahead of the NRF show this week outlined the great success retailers are having once they place mobility in the hands of their associates/managers to change the customer experience in-store. However, it also highlighted the top 5 challenges retailers are facing when deploying mobility, which include:
- Having the right applications for mobile
- Lacking staff to manage mobility
- Lacking proper helpdesk/support options
- EMV certification challenges/lack of good payment options
- Managing/monitoring mobile security
We were not surprised by these results, as we work daily with some of the top retailers in the world to help them plan, deploy, manage and support mobile for their employees. Through this, we see first-hand how these challenges are manifested by retailers superb at navigating the fast-changing world of retail, but for all the right reasons they are not able to navigate the even-faster-changing world of mobile technology.
Stratix’s Retail Technology Managed Mobile Services (MMS) can overcome these challenges and allow retailers to accomplish their goals for mobility in the hands of associates, managers and for mobile POS:
- Proper Applications: Our partnership with leading app development companies allows us to bring expertise to our customers to plan and create the applications needed. Our MDM Admin team works with our customers to ensure that any application managed through their MDM environment is always up to date and operational.
- Staff to Manage / Support / Help Desk: Our MMS services are ideal for augmenting existing staff, and ensuring the retailer has the right expertise, manpower, mobile lifecycle management and 7x24x365 Support options required for mobility in retail.
- Managing / Monitoring Mobile Security: Our Mobile Device Management MDM Admin services can assist the retailer with properly creating an MDM environment and policies to ensure any lost or stolen devices can be locked or wiped swiftly. As the IHL white paper reports, there are numerous stories of retailers losing upwards of 50% of their consumer-grade devices within one year, and Stratix’ MDM team can assist these retailers by swiftly securing these lost devices and their data. Additionally, Stratix’ PCI Compliance certification allows us to provide a layer of security throughout the chain of custody for any POS equipment we are managing.
- EMV / Payment options: The white paper specifically discusses that this may have little to do with the technology and more to do with retailers being certified by certification experts. While Stratix does not do EMV certification, we can bring POS vendors to a solution which provide the retailer options for how to best deploy POS solutions.
The benefits of deploying mobility in retail are immense and create great business benefits for both the front-of-the-house with retail associates and managers and the back-of-the-house with warehouse/distribution center operations.
