There is no denying that many retail businesses often turn a blind eye to efficient stock management. Vulnerable to theft, mismanagement, and excessive expenditure, inventory can often lead to more headaches than initially estimated.
Old habits die hard, especially when it comes to business practices. However, in a world where technology has become the pinnacle of operational success, it’s almost impossible for business leaders to ignore the importance of technology within their businesses. In the same breath, how does a business leader differentiate their processes if they work? Here are a couple of tell-tale signs to assess whether you need to rethink some of your manual processes:
In uncertain or tough economic times, business leaders are always the first to voice their concerns about how to move forward. In the last decade, South Africa has experienced economic peaks and troughs, giving business leaders and decision makers more than their fair share of losses and triumphs. Now, with the newly-elected President of South Africa, local businesses expect to see a new dawn for trade and industry that will hopefully breathe new life into stagnant profit streams and growth.
As the popularity of emerging digital technologies increases, so does the face of the retail and distribution industry. While digital transformation has become an important aspect for business who want to keep up and continue to grow in this environment, it has also created concerns for those businesses that may, at some point, have fallen behind the curve.
As the retail landscape changes and becomes more technology-focused, it has become increasingly important for retail businesses to keep on track with the various trends that dictate the trajectory of industry. If you own or are responsible for local retail business, here are the trends you need to take note of:
Customer demand has become very complex and very challenging. Previously, distributors could base their supply on the basics of simply supplying products and fulfilling a need for certain products but today the landscape is vastly different.
Cloud-based services have become the norm for many businesses around the world. Not only is it a safer option as it mitigates many risks, but it has also become a universal signal that a business has moved on to the next generation of technology. Keeping up with the latest tech to ensure efficiencies, accuracies, security, business intelligence, data collection and management thereof and much more is crucial as not many businesses can afford to fall behind the curve anymore. Data plays a big role in this. From mobile data to more high risk confidential customer and employee data as well as the data and insights around your business, it’s crucial to manage this properly. One of the most effective and preferred solutions are to move to the Cloud. Cloud technology has become the most trusted technology used by organisations in all fields around the globe and is gaining more and more prevalence.
A changing economy means that businesses are having to focus more on making the most of what they have and to be cost conscious. This has a big effect on not only small purchases but even more so on the big purchases such as expensive machinery and equipment. Not only does the high cost aspect pose a risk for businesses that rely on heavy-duty machinery to operate, but it can also raise a number of red flags when it comes to safety and reliability as there are added big expenses to keep up with the maintenance of these machines or equipment. If we look at these aspects, the option for businesses to hire equipment or machinery instead of purchasing them, becomes a real consideration.
Today, more than ever before, consumers and businesses alike are becoming more conscious about the environment and the role they can play to become more environmentally friendly. For example, many restaurants the world over have started using paper or biodegradable drinking straws, while the likes of New Zealand have banned single-use plastic. As the consumer grows more aware of how various business and manufacturing practices effect the environment, they will also start to avoid products/services that are not environmentally friendly, as much as they can. It is therefore important for organisations to make strategic moves to eliminate as much of their carbon and waste footprint as possible, or suffer the loss of environmentally conscious customers.
Data – a word that has been thrown around a lot but all for a very good reason. Today, most businesses can’t or shouldn’t operate without really evaluating their data, and those who have the skills to interpret it and use it to their benefit are the businesses that have been able to grow from strength to strength. Not only does data hold the key to unlock invaluable business intelligence, but it also gives rise to an entirely new way of doing business. Being smart and efficient about how you run your business, are two aspects where data is really valuable as it highlights where you are doing well and where you need to improve as well as showing aspects that you may not even have thought about.
