Retail Digital Services: Elevating Customer Experience Using Emerging Technologies

Retail enterprises worldwide leverage emerging technologies to provide a personalized and immersive customer experience. They also focus on enhancing profit margins by utilizing AI to improve operational efficiency and venturing into higher-margin businesses such as retail media networks. They are also realizing the significance of social media as a pivotal commerce channel and adopting measures to better connect with their audiences there. Increasing regulatory requirements also compel retailers to integrate sustainability into core business operations.

Both demand- and supply-side trends are covered in Avasant’s Retail Digital Services 2024 Market Insights™  and Retail Digital Services 2024 RadarView™,  respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of digital service providers in the retail industry, including top trends, analysis, and recommendations. The reports also closely examine the leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers in this market.

We evaluated 42 service providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, investments and innovation, and partner ecosystem. Of the 42 providers, we recognized 22 that brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.

The reports recognize service providers across four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, HCLTech, IBM, Infosys, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Genpact, LTIMindtree, TCS, Tech Mahindra, and UST
  • Disruptors: Atos, CGI, DXC Technology, Kyndryl, Reply, and Sutherland
  • Challengers: Fujitsu, NTT DATA, Persistent Systems, and Zensar

Figure 1 below from the full report illustrates these categories:

“Retailers are being compelled to enhance the customer experience to curb churn and protect margins,” said Joe Frampus, managing partner at Avasant. “They must embrace emerging technologies such as AR/VR/XR and AI to provide their customers with more personalized and immersive experiences.”

The reports provide several findings, including the following:

• • Retailers are focusing on providing enhanced customer experience through hyper-personalization and immersive technologies such as AR/VR/XR to reduce customer churn and maintain a consistent revenue source.
  • Retailers are leveraging AI to unlock operational efficiency in different processes across the value chain, including forecasting and inventory optimization to protect their operating margins.
  • Retailers are enhancing their profit margins by exploring alternate revenue streams such as data analytics, digital marketing, and fintech solutions with substantially augmented profit margins compared to conventional retail business operations.
  • They are incorporating sustainable business practices across the value chain in response to increased regulatory requirements.
  • Retailers are realizing the importance of social media as a pivotal commerce channel and are focussing on building online communities and leveraging content creators on these platforms.

“Providing enhanced customer experiences and incorporating sustainability into business operations has become table stakes,” said Praveen Kona, associate research director at Avasant. “IT providers must co-innovate with retailers and partners to improve customer experiences and reduce emissions.”

The RadarView also features detailed profiles of 22 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting retail enterprises in their digital transformation journeys.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of the Retail Digital Services 2024 Market Insights™  and Retail Digital Services 2024 RadarView™  (click for pricing).