Have you noticed that the retail industry has a new look? The latest generation of shoppers has gone digital, preferring to use Alexa to find and order the perfect product rather than buying it in person. No wonder brands like Amazon Go are taking the world by storm—changing the concept of shopping for good.
Now that technology is here to stay, retailers are wondering about the future. The strong bond between technology and retail is forcing them to make tough decisions regarding their online presence. But is launching a simple e-commerce store enough to keep up with increasing demands?
Unfortunately not.
You also need to manage your network because an e-commerce store is much less valuable if its network isn’t properly managed. Retailers have to address this issue to ensure that their online platforms are profitable.
The biggest network challenges for retailers
The global COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend toward online shopping dramatically.
Some retailers started restructuring their brick-and-mortar stores to adapt to the demands of the new age. Rather than enticing customers to stores, smartphones and web solutions now bring goods to consumers’ doorsteps.
And although this might seem like an easy transition, it requires a lot of planning. Increased demand for IT infrastructure has left many enterprises short of IT resources, especially retail organizations that need to manage hundreds of thousands of devices spread across multiple locations and countries.
Even a slight setback in business-critical applications can hurt revenues and ruin reputations, causing both stakeholders and customers to lose faith. This means that retailers need to rely on bandwidth-intensive applications that leave no room for jitter, lag, or downtime.
What’s more, modern businesses are looking to expand their reach. An establishment in one location can serve loyal customers in another state. However, opening and managing these stores can be challenging because new branches have to be opened as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
But provisioning new private circuits, scheduling onsite technicians to install network reconfigurations, and updating policies is time-intensive.
Traditional network models simply cannot meet these demands, causing many retailers to rethink their plans.
Empowering efficiency with enhanced connectivity and intelligent bandwidth
Managing hundreds of connections across countless locations while ensuring optimal service levels and network operations can seem impossible. But there’s a simple solution.
SD-WAN combines broadband, multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), and LTE in a single network to deliver the service levels you need. Businesses can leverage SD-WAN solutions to meet their growing bandwidth demands and provide seamless Wi-Fi experiences, including application access and digital signage with audio and video content. Implementing an SD-WAN solution makes prioritizing bandwidth-intensive tasks, e.g. setting up and maintaining an e-commerce site, hosting online training, or running order management software, easy. It also gives you the flexibility to streamline and balance traffic across various WAN services.
Improving the omnichannel experience across stores
Delivering an omnichannel customer experience with streamlined technological infrastructure is imperative. But actually making that a reality can be a struggle.
SD-WAN gives you centralized network control to streamline workflow automation processes and operations, such as inventory management, order workflow, and sales marketing. An SD-WAN environment also helps create an excellent shopping experience, secures customers' payment options, and boosts engagement with your e-commerce solution.
Enabling simple yet comprehensive network control
SD-WAN gives you total network control. Managed from a single dashboard, this modern network solution lets you easily upgrade software, scale bandwidth, and create access policies. While SD-WAN solutions reduce onsite network complexity, they also make it easier to configure new stores by enabling real-time data and application access to make the customer experience more user-friendly and boost revenue.
Transforming your security landscape
Retailers collect and store a wide array of sensitive user information, including financial and personal data. A single data breach can cause huge problems for your customers, revenues, and reputation. Traditional unified security methods fail to offer the required level of data safety.
SD-WAN solutions, on the other hand, ensure maximum data security thanks to encryption and tunneling methods.
Managing network maintenance, time, and cost with advanced tools
Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, which often means that new network devices and applications are incompatible with legacy technologies. And this can cause your networks to run slow or poorly, leading to a bad customer experience.
SD-WAN solutions, however, minimize the use of onsite hardware, which of course also reduces how many updates and site visits are required. Business owners can use a single dashboard to modify their application processes across all sites, saving both time and money.
Choosing the SD-WAN solution provider to future-proof your business
Telekom SD-WAN solutions are tailored to retail brands to help them take their networking operations to the next level. What’s more, our solutions bring a myriad of benefits such as easy management, provisioning, and centralized control.
Orchestrating everything from a core platform, the Telekom SD-WAN team goes the extra mile by analyzing the needs of your retail organization to ensure the perfect managed services for your business. This allows businesses to leverage enhanced connectivity to scale up or down as needed.
When you choose Telekom SD-WAN, you can also look forward to:
- One-stop shopping—we take care of everything for our customers from connectivity and the SD-WAN platform to branch devices, engineering, and maintenance.
- Infrastructure for your SD-WAN based on our fiber, wireless, and VDSL network.
- End-to-end SLA starting from connectivity performance and availability to SD-WAN core availability and CPE replacement—if needed, all combined in one SLA.
- Top engineering know-how from our experts who design, manage, and maintain your SD-WAN network.
- OPEX as a service model with no upfront investment for customers.
- No maintenance and licensing issues as our experts take care of all SD-WAN components.
Telekom is happy to answer any questions you might have about planning, implementing, and maintaining your digitalization plans. Let’s get ready for the new generation of shoppers and the retail landscape of tomorrow together!