Standing up for British retail

Considering the problem

This fear is born out of a bitter experience where patchy integrations, system sync issues, systems going down, data entry and access errors all conspire to undermine effectiveness and improved productivity. Mixing separate retail software applications like eCommerce, EPoS, CRM, and RMS causes endless problems and prevents retailers from doing what they do best - wowing and satisfying customers.

Read more about how system integrations are killing retailers.

Where does this problem stem from?

Many owners and managers of SMEs do not have the time to understand all the digital tools that are available to them. Typically they're too busy running the business to have the time to fully evaluate what’s out there to help them improve their business’ productivity. Read more here about multichannel order management.

The pandemic has induced an acceleration of retailers adopting eCommerce, which is unlikely to be reversed when the crisis reduces. But it’s also clear that the pandemic has simultaneously highlighted the centrality of technology to SMEs’ future while also exposing the digital adoption gap that exists and has been hampering UK productivity since long before the pandemic. 

There’s plenty of evidence to show that businesses who invest in technology will see and understand the rewards’ value. Their positive experience is often a reliable way for others to benefit as they talk about and recommend the success of the solutions to their industry peers (see case study on And So To Bed). 

Indeed, to better support best practice, knowledge sharing and provide shortcuts, there are calls for a government-backed sector-by-sector technology matrix that lists a set of pre-approved productivity tools as a guide for businesses—we at Iconography support this initiative. With our evidence-based client case studies and sector focus pages, we aim to provide signposting and reassurance to companies looking to make systems and software investments.

It is widely accepted that digital adoption can improve businesses’ productivity in several different ways. The most obvious of which is reducing the administrative costs of basic tasks. Companies that use cloud technologies overwhelmingly identify its benefits: lower cost, increased speed, and improved security and productivity gains.  The enterprise research centre also conducted a three-year study into the impact of digital adoption on the performance of 6,200 micro-firms in the UK and found the following:

For over 20 years, Iconography has been working with retailers to create enterprise eCommerce websites using our award-winning platform. 

OMNIS unified commerce, launched in 2020, has been developed to solve many of the issues retailers face regarding omnichannel retail. It is a transformational tool in achieving the goal of improving productivity in the area of retail management systems. 

And the key to it is combining eCommerce, EPoS, CRM and a suite of essential retail management functionality into a cloud-based unified commerce platform. Doing that removes the need for integrations which are the main drag on improving productivity.