When you think of retail automation, you probably imagine eCommerce or self-service kiosks in shops. But, if we think past these examples and consider your supply chain, workflows, and customer service, you’ll be able to enjoy the full potential of automation.
The proof?
- Retailers that embrace automation can increase margins by up to 60%.
- Using automation to augment your supply chain can reduce costs by up to 30%.
- You could cut labor costs by up to 30% by automating customer service tasks.
But that’s not all, automation offers a whole host of benefits:
- Improved operational efficiency
When your processes are well-defined, you can use automation to cut out unnecessary or duplicate tasks and automate steps for improved efficiency.
- More productive staff
Automated applications provide clear processes for team members to follow, ensuring your staff know how to do their jobs most effectively. These apps also assist your team in solving problems and providing great service.
- Lower costs
Implementing automation across your business reduces manual tasks and improves productivity, both of which can decrease your operating costs. Also, a more streamlined workforce means that wastage, human error, and theft are less likely.
- Better customer experiences
Automation can also help you deliver a more efficient and consistent customer experience, and handle complaints more effectively. It can also make it easier for customers to reach out about an order, ensuring that disputes are simple to raise and easy to resolve.
- Mitigate risk
Your business faces many risks, including theft, inventory shortages, and compliance. All of these can be reduced, or mitigated entirely, with automation. By augmenting your business with applications that automatically align with regulations, you’ll be able to always remain compliant. You can also use this technology to improve forecasting and ensure stock levels are maintained, or even identify discrepancies that aid in tackling theft or wastage.
Want to unlock these benefits? Here are seven ways your business could use automation.
Speedy product launches
To keep pace with an ever-more competitive market and changes in demand, you need to be able to expand your product offering, fast. By improving processes and increasing efficiency with automation, you’ll be able to deliver new products at speed and keep up with trends.
Stronger inventory management
Today’s retailers operate across multiple sales channels, yet many still use outdated inventory management processes. This can lead to errors or inaccurate reporting, causing upset customers and a damaged reputation. By automating your inventory management processes, you can track stock in real-time while improving accuracy and mitigating the need to manually update spreadsheets.
Seamless store operations
All tasks that take place in-store, from cleaning and restocking to security and managing health and safety incidents, can be managed with automation. Using a bespoke application, designed around your business, you can allocate and approve tasks automatically, increasing efficiency and keeping the store in optimum condition.
On time, every time
By connecting your supply chain, inventory management, and fulfillment systems, you’ll ensure the right products reach the right place at the right time. No more missed deliveries, wasted time, and unhappy customers.
Sensational customer service
Give customers more power by offering them self-serve support. You’ll remove barriers to support, increase efficiency, and quickly match customers with the right service agent to resolve their issue.
Manage contracts easily
Retail is a typically high-turnover industry. This, coupled with vendor and rental agreements, means lots of contracts to create and review. Automating contract management means the right stakeholders can view, amend, and approve contracts in one simple dashboard.
Master data management
By maintaining and optimizing data across all your systems, you’ll get a single source of truth. This will give you the insight and confidence to make better business decisions, from supply chain management to demand-based recruitment. With a clear picture of your business, you’ll be able to remain in total control.
Learn more about the impact automation can have on your retail supply chain in our Supply Chain Solutions for Retail solution brief.
From household brands to distribution companies, automation is being used to improve businesses across the spectrum of retail.
Unilever use low-code automation platforms to handle many of their more complex processes. They also use automation to connect their key systems, providing better visibility across their supply chain and financial processes.
Bunzl have automated their customer contact center, leading to 33% faster call resolution and happier customers. It’s not just their customers that are benefitting, either. Bunzl are saving seven workdays every single month as a result of automating their customer service.
Adidas have transformed their operations with automated technology. In fact, they were able to reduce their operational costs by 60% by connecting siloed departments and making their platforms more user friendly and efficient.
CBC wanted to improve how they deliver beverages to over a billion people worldwide. By introducing a platform to provide transparency, consistency, and security for their delivery services, they’ve been able to drastically improve efficiency. The proof? They now meet 100% of the delivery SLAs.
As automation becomes more commonplace in the retail sector, businesses are enjoying improved processes, greater visibility, and more cost efficiency.
With Bizagi Automation, your business can revolutionize and future-proof itself. To see how we can connect you to better processes and happier customers, visit our retail automation page.
