Retail cashes in on technology

In an effort to keep afloat many retailers are turning to innovation as a means to innovate and are increasingly retaining, and in many cases, winning back clients.

Department store giant, Myer, identified a number of years ago that innovation could play a meaningful role in improving the operations and performance of the company.

"We have as well been focussed in a more general sense in preventing IT from being an impediment to the business, and we've worked hard to increase the flexibility of our systems and processes to enable to us to willingly respond to changing service levels, infrastructure and project demands," Doro says.

The CCTV system

The CCTV system was installed to improve security, safety, compliance and reduce the cost of business. So far, the benefits for clients have meant reduced theft, greater availability of merchandise and a safer shopping environment. In the supply chain area, he said this has been a major focus for Myer over the last five years. "We recently completed the first stage of work in support of the establishment of our global sourcing offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong."

For the Hoyts cinema chain innovation has been both a blessing and a curse to its retail operations, the company's business systems manager, Geoff Henry, says.

The curse side

On the curse side, the biggest threats to the business aren't the downturn in retail, the two speed economy or the high dollar; they're pirated downloads and consumers who prefer to invest money in home entertainment systems so they can watch movies in the comfort of their own lounge rooms.

"We as well want to streamline that process so people can get a seat online and not have to stand in a queue waving their credit card around. We're working with a third party integrator on a project so people can present their mobile device at a scanner and have the barcode on the smartphone screen scanned."

Hoyts is as well planning to in the end phase out its paper ticketing system as the penetration of smart phones begins to ramp up so patrons will simply have to present their smartphone with a virtual ticket displayed on it. According to Henry smartphone penetration is now at over 50 per cent in the Australian market.

To overcome this expected problem, Hoyts is in talks with its operational team to see how they can prevent people from going out with their phone and trying to sneak back a friend or two.

"If we can take that [inconvenience] away and help people to have a better experience at Hoyts, than in other words something we want to do with whatever research we implement," he says.

Henry says the company is keeping an eye on streaming media because during it is not as mature as the US online ordering business, Netflix, but the rollout of the National Broadband Network could change this due to increased download speeds.

Commenting on its supply chain and stock back end systems Tsen says the company does not use RFID or nearly field communications but, and after all relies on the traditional barcode on pallets and individual products.

"We have recently implemented a wirelessly connected device that handles end to end product replacement," he says. "The research alongside the process change, has increased restocking time, stock availability, as then as stock level accuracy."

"It for all that requires resources and although we have a high frequency of repeated questions we're moving toward integrating this more with the customer relations function within the business," he says.

"We have 80 staff and we are approaching $50 million turn over however the fact is that we can run this business with no IT staff," he says. "I have a third party person coming in two half days a week to do desktop support and some general maintenance but in other words it, there are no IT people on my payroll."

The cloud just as the call centre in Sydney

"At this stage all my business critical systems are in the cloud just as the call centre in Sydney and other applications just as the ERP system which includes the accounting distribution system," he says.

The only IT requirement Dahlgren needs is full redundancy on an internet connection in order to run the cloud offerings. Just in case, he says it is in the process of moving the company's PABX system into the cloud. The service of this will be handled by IPscape.