Modern retailers have to outmaneuver numerous competitors, exceed customer expectations, and improve organizational efficiency by any available means. Besides, it is essential for them to take into account that consumer-buying patterns have become more digitalized. What’s more, such companies often have poor visibility into the data required for their adaptation to the customers’ needs and requirement.
Therefore, modern retailers are applying to business process management solutions more than ever before. Such platforms let organizations automate and streamline their inner processes, minimize the gap between their stuff and the clients, as well as increase the level of customer satisfaction. All this boosts their revenue and makes them more competitive in the evolving market.
A good example of BPM for retail is bpm’online – a cloud-based solution aimed at connecting the dots between marketing, sales, and customer service. The software lets organizations create and launch loyalty programs of any level and complexity and evaluate their performance in real time. With bpm’online, retailers get a unique opportunity to build long-term relations with each of their purchasers and turn every customer interaction into a profitable opportunity. You can read about other benefits of this solution for modern businesses at https://www.bpmonline.com/crm-products and at http://www.slideshare.net/BPMonline.
How BPM Can Improve Retail
Business process management software lets enterprises deliver a great customer service over and over again throughout their entire operation. It improves companies’ performance in the following ways:
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BPM for retail provides inventory management
It helps companies get rid of the necessity to manually check their stock, as they get the automated stock control tools and the system of task management. The platforms of the kind guarantee automated web-based update of inventory management systems in real time from different stores and locations. With business process management software, stock inventory updates take place irrespective of the purchase channel (e-commerce, in-store shopping, and so on). Retailers obtain a 360° view of their products accompanied by the actual data on them instantly available regardless of where it is stored. What is more, BPM tools are easily integrated with other services and platforms.
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Such systems can bring customer service to higher standards
With CRM and BPM platforms, you can bring much improvement to your customer experience. As a result, you will obtain satisfied customers with predictable behaviour, while your clients will get the opportunity to buy what they want, whenever they want, and in the way they want. The platforms of the kind let organizations gain a 360° view of their buyers with the possibility to record, systematize, and store all the customer information in a single database. All this helps sales reps and managers be maximally responsive to the clients’ needs and requirements. With BPM software, companies easily create and modify their retail processes on-the-fly. What is more, modern vendors provide mobile-friendly platforms that can be engaged anywhere, anytime and on any device in a safe manner.
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Business process management is essential to successful store management
Having implemented the platform of the kind, you can create two-way communications between your headquarters and individual stores, perform streamlined store inspections, and gain instant feedback concerning different initiatives. With a suitable BPM system, you get the opportunity to avoid human errors and fraud, reduce the burden of compliance, and increase the profitability of your business processes. The software of the kind provides real-time access to store performance to every member of the organization. BPM for retail speeds up the procedures of settlement of the issues connected to social networking and integrated retail processes. Besides, with such software companies can avoid sudden running out of stock on popular product lines, as they receive automated alerts and notifications that can provide automated re-ordering of the necessary goods.
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BPM software improves marketing and promotion
It helps retailers optimize their marketing performance by means of automation of the basic workflows and predictive analysis of all the processes. BPM for retail allows enterprises to monitor, analyze, and improve their business activity and engage the staff across multiple channels, including Social Media, phones, e-mail, and so on. Companies get a unique opportunity to gain real-time responses to their in-store promotions. Besides, with BPM software retail organizations gain a complete overview of all their information in real-time, irrespective of where it is stored or from what source it was obtained.
Implementation of BPM for Retail
The process of business process management implementation includes the following steps:
- First, your company’s specialists should gain insight into the capabilities of the chosen BPM solution and understand what you want your project to achieve.
- Your second step is to define the features of the forthcoming project, its key objective, timescales, and other characteristic features.
- Afterwards you should perform a technical and cost feasibility study of the BPM implementation; find out if the project will cost you too much or if it needs to be phased for a longer period of time.
- The next step is the development of the business case. If you see that your objectives can be achieved at reasonable costs, start preparing a business case to justify and secure the company’s budget.
- In order to implement BPM for retail, you should define the scope of your projects, as well as their budget, objectives, priorities, and so on. Make sure you have defined all the steps of this process and involved all the necessary members.
- Then you can implement the chosen solution, rolling it out step by step. Do your best to follow the defined objectives, take into account the team’s expectations, and set measurements at each stage of this process.
- Finally, you should evaluate success against the aims you’ve set. Measure both the goals defined for each individual stage and for the whole project. Improve possible drawbacks and think over the company’s further enhancements.
