Page 11 - Logistics News July 2019
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Thought Leadership
4. Shipping: Packaging and transporting the companies will begin to orchestrate the
products. customer experience by pairing channels to
5. Last-mile delivery: Taking the product to the make a consumer’s experience easier.
end-customer, the return of shipments. An article from ET Retail suggests that in the
6. After-sales: Customer care, consumer services. future, bots will be the default channel by which
we will place our orders. The bot will let the
How can companies go the omnichannel way? consumers know that it has put in the order for
Tracing the customer journey: Figuring out the daily/weekly grocery supplies from the preferred
customer journey is critical to going omnichannel. online grocer using the rate of consumption,
How do people fi nd your company? What historical data, quantity left over in the cupboard
channels are they using and how are they using and smart refrigerator to calculate the order. In
them? How do they interact with your brand? many cases, the online grocers will automatically
Understand your customer: Know their work out the weekly order based on predictive
preferences, shopping habits, purchasing analytics using the consumption and shopper
destination, the frequency of purchase and data, and inform the bot the ETA of the courier/
presence on the internet. drone. Basically, all our mundane tasks of
Figuring out the logistics: Companies need to sort ordering groceries and daily use products will be
out their logistics requirements fi rst, do they need taken care of by our bots.
to outsource the delivery vehicles? How will they The article goes on to suggest that even
take care of the reverse logistics? the smart commute that the customers will
Integrate your approach: Organisations need to use will have interactive TV displaying all the
be consistent with their communication, look and retailers selling the products that the customer
feel, and customer experience across all channels. wants to shop, their USPs and benefi ts, and
the best deals available that day for a specifi c
Benefi ts of omnichannel fulfi lment customer based on proximity and preference
At its core, a good omnichannel fulfi lment process using big data and IoT! Once the customer
should ensure that all orders are executed after chooses the retailer he or she wants to visit,
evaluating all possible channels and supply the smart display will enable the taxi to drive
sources. Centralised data should lead to a better there and will let the retailer know in real time
demand forecast that will reduce wasting of that the customer is on their way to them, the
inventory or overproduction of goods. Providing ETA, interest in the products that day, etc. So,
diff erent buying channels and having channel while a lot of our shopping in 2030 may still be
specifi c communication leads to better customer impulsive, predictive analytics will ensure that
experience and increased customer retention. The there is a fair bit of planning around this done
organisation can also gather its learning from one by the machines around us.
channel and use it in another to provide a more
fulfi lling experience to the customers and improve Key fi ndings
overall effi ciency. • The advent of e-commerce has shaken the
• Reduced inventory costs with accurate inventory retail space; to facilitate faster gratifi cation
management. to customers, retail companies are trying to
• Increase in revenue with new market shorten their distribution processes by going
opportunities. the omnichannel way.
• Improved customer experience. • With customers using multiple channels for
• Decreased shipping costs. shopping, brands need to be present where
• Minimising labour costs. their customers are.
• Cross channel insights. • Understanding customer journey and
In addition, a recent study by HBR found that behaviour, and integrating the channels to
omnichannel shoppers spend 4 percent more, provide the essential customer ‘experience’ is
on average, during in-store shopping trips and the deciding factor of omnichannel retailing
10 percent more online than customers who only success.
used a single channel. • Data-driven analysis that uses artifi cial
intelligence to predict upcoming trends might
Future of omnichannel be the future of omnichannel retail.
Expect enterprises to move from a ‘multi- • In the future, retail will shift from using
channel’ model to a ‘channel-less’ model as multiple channels to a channel-less experience,
omnichannel retail becomes more and more where it will be virtually impossible to separate
seamless. Rather than adding more channels, the diff erent mediums of retailing. •
July 2019 | Logistics News 9