DECEMBER 20198he use of technology in the retail supermarket sector is exploding. From digital signage to customer fac-ing devices, to internet cafés, the use and reliance on technology has grown exponentially. Customers ex-pect retailers to adopt and make available to them technol-ogies that offer them flexibility, simplicity, and ease of use to improve their overall shopping experience.In the retail supermarket business, the use of technology is not a novelty anymore­it is a necessity! Customers will quickly migrate to the retailer that provides the best shop-ping experience. In many cases, it is the application of inno-vative technology that creates the experience, and speed to RETAIL: IT'S ALL ABOUT `EXPERIENCE'By Paul Scorza, CIO & EVP, Information Technology, & Malcolm D'Souza, Sr. Director, I.T. Transformation Retail Business Services, an Ahold Delhaize CompanyIN MY OPINIONmarket is essential in order to stay competitive. This growth in the use of technology has created some unique challenges for both manufacturers and for supermarket retailers. Retailers are clam-oring for new, innovative solutions to entice and engage their customers. There is no shortage of ideas; however, the realization of ideas into tangi-ble solutions is lacking.Technology changes rapidly and with every new evolution, there are new capabilities being made available, which open the possibility for new applications. The ability of retailers to capi-talize on the potential use of these new capabil-ities can be the key to attracting new customers, which translates to increasing market share. At a very basic level, retailing is very simple. Retailers buy product, they display the product, and they sell the product. The application of new capabil-ities has to be able to support this basic concept of retailing but, also provide new conveniences or services to customers. Call it the "wow factor".In addition, omni-channel retailing has be-come more prevalent and mainstream. Custom-ers expect to be able to shop for products in the convenience of their homes and to be able to pick up the product at a store of their convenience. They expect retailers to provide them with inter-net connectivity while shopping in their stores, so that they are able to compare prices and offer-ings from other competitive retailers. The "expe-rience" is a key attribute in impacting customer satisfaction. Retailers are not technologists and therefore need to rely on technology partners to innovate, develop, and deliver solutions to create the experience and keep them competitive.One would expect software companies to be able to provide solutions much more rapidly than in-house development teams. However, this is not necessarily the case. Is this because there is a lack of foresight into the future? Is it a lack of in-vestment in R&D? My experience is that software companies are ready to develop solutions but they rely on retailers to provide the concept and idea. To further make the point, software companies need to develop solutions that meet a broad range of requirements because of the large client base that they want to satisfy. This introduces more overhead and complexity and slows down the TPaul Scorza, CIO & EVP, Information TechnologyAs an industry leader and IT executive, Paul fostered the growth of 1000+ global teams of several companies and added superlative value to every organization he managed
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