Top 20 Retail Technology Consulting/Services Companies - 2014

The aisles in retail have transitioned intelligently enabling the consumer to quickly zero-in on his favorite item and get it delivered at his place of request. The retail trajectory is bent on converging customer touch points to epitomize consumer experience. The future technology upheaval in retail is dependent on the effective utilization of the current innovations and sciences enveloping the dynamic retail space.

In retail’s evolution spree, the CIOs have their fair share of challenges and opportunities rendered along the technology value-chain. With global e-commerce surging on as a trillion dollar industry, the pace of omni-channel retailing is gathering newer dimensions. Heralding a new beginning, the confluence of commerce technologies and social media trends, influence in-store purchase decisions, ramp up the convenience factor, and increase profits in the digital marketplace.

For all those gleaming merchandise stocked shelves, numerous technologies work in tandem to enable every commerce transaction, whether occurring in a ‘Brick and Mortar’ store or through online. The need to stay abreast of the rising retail tide is to invest in the right technology or the solution.

The POS products and solutions, mobile payment apps, tablets with mobile POS—the creative deployment of today’s technologies rope in the tactile experience for the consumer. The mobility-defined networks which showcase store associates to be like virtual assistants and the iBeacons routing relevant customer-centric promotions add to the retail experience.

In the quest towards inventory and supply chain effectiveness, the right product in its most right parameters and assortments are needed at the most saleable location and geographies. The logistics engine, the cross channel demand platforms predicting the merchandise, the pricing platforms effecting the right pricing strategies, supply chain optimization softwares—all of these synchronize to drive the well-oiled retail value chain.

Of course the science behind all these—the hyped Big Data, setting an equal tone, ushers in the vital metrics to enforce the straight line trimming costs on all fronts. These evidenced-based decisions are what the retailers rely on in every single transaction. In conjunction with the numerous technologies, the right implementation procedures and guidelines are definitely resourceful. The expertise of numerous consultants foretells the pitfalls, while ensuring easy and efficient adoption of relevant technologies.

There is an ongoing fundamental shift in the consumer’s expectations, be it shopping habits expectations on pricing or service levels, addressing these require a new thinking, technologies and approaches. The following pages explore how retailers can benefit from the confluence of available technologies to interact in real time and gain the competitive edge.

In our selection, we evaluated the vendor’s capability to fulfill the needs of the retailers in deciphering consumer buying behavior and power onward experience retailing. We present to you CIO Review’s Most Promising Retail Solution and Consulting Providers 2014.