In-Store Mobile Investments Target Employees and Customers, but not Store Managers

One of the most surprising findings to emerge from a benchmark study this year, “Walking the Razor’s Edge: Managing the Store Experience in an Economic Singularity,” was the lack of attention given to empowering the franchise owner-operators or their store managers with mobile technology. Retail Systems Research asked retailers how long they’ve provided technology-enabled touch points in the body of the store for store managers, customers and employees. For store managers, we qualified the question to include MOBILE touch points only.

As we can see below, 40% have no vision at all of a mobile-empowered store manager on their radar screens while only 14% have provided this support for longer than one year.

This dearth of data moves beyond the store manager’s needs, and impacts the in-store experience for employees and customers as well. The manager is forced to choose between keeping an eye on the selling floor and getting information in the back office. In either case, he lacks half the information he needs to do an outstanding job.

About the author: Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner of Retail Systems Research, a provider of insights and consulting services into business and technology challenges facing retailers. This is a copyrighted article that is cross-posted by permission of RSR.