IBM and Apple ready retail apps
IBM and Apple announced a strategic partnership earlier this year that promises to transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps. The companies plan to leverage their respective strengths in technology, business intelligence and user experience to create solutions that address some of the retail industry’s most pressing challenges. To better understand what that means, Retailing Today spoke with Jill Puleri, VP and global retail industry leader for IBM Global Business Services.
Before we get started, can you explain what your role at IBM entails?
As Global Retail Industry Leader, I’m responsible for the strategy and development of offerings and solutions that address retailer’s pain points for the store, merchandising, supply chain and multi-channel.
The IBM and Apple partnership announcement on July 15 caught many people by surprise. Recap if you will the logic behind this arrangement and how the retail industry can expect to benefit from the unique combination?
The partnership is around unlocking the full potential of enterprise mobility. Many see the potential of mobile in the enterprise, but apps and devices really need to be integrated with core business processes, work flow and back-end data and analytics in order to bring the power of mobile to the individual professional. With this partnership, we are making mobile available for serious business.
Retail is one of the main industries that has already been transformed by the rise of mobile devices, but much of the work so far has been consumer-facing. With Apple, our goal is to change the way retail operates by focusing on activating the retail workforce with mobile solutions. For retail, we’re really excited about the opportunity to marry the systems and enterprise knowledge from IBM with the great design and user experience model that Apple has succeeded in over the years. There are two job roles that we are transforming through this partnership. The in-store associate and the merchant. Both of these roles are inherently mobile and yet they lack the true insight in order to assist consumers or to make better decisions.
Your CEO, Ginni Rometty, said the partnership would transform the way people work, industries operate and companies perform. How so?
We think the real value of mobile in the enterprise is re-imagining work that transforms industries and professions. Think of a truly mobilized workforce using the power of data and analytics — how does this change the way we’re solving client problems? In the retail industry, we look at store associates and managers who can have access to real-time product, inventory and location information — and also insights on customers from data and analytics. Equipped with this information on a mobile device in the store, an associate would be able to greatly improve their customer service — really transforming the way they work.
Apple CEO Tim Cook took things a step further. He called the deal a “radical” step for businesses that only Apple and IBM can deliver. What do you think retailers and CPG companies are going to see that warrants Tim’s radical characterization?
Building on the last question, I think we’re going to see the way professionals and employees work at retail and CPG companies radically change. They will be empowered by mobile to provide better service — for those on the ground and also behind the scenes in merchandising, delivery, etc.
With retail being one of the first industry verticals targeted, bring us up to speed on what’s happened in the two months since the partnership was announced?
Since July 15, we have been working diligently with Apple to design and develop the mobile apps that are focused on transforming the way a retailer does business.
When will we see the first app and what problem will it solve?
We will see the first apps rolling out later this fall. For retail, we are focused on empowering sales associates with information on the sales floor that helps them have tools at their fingertips to better serve customers. We are also equipping merchants with tools for when they are away from their home office and in-market doing their buys. Imagine equipping these visual, design centric merchants with true insight of their products and their vendors through a dynamic visual experience. Bringing the art and science of retail together finally!
Are we going to see new purpose built Apple devices ruggedized for the retail environment or are the apps designed to run on existing form factors?
Our work with Apple is focused on developing over 100 made-for-business apps that are targeted for different industries along with IBM cloud services for iOS and enterprise-class AppleCare service and support.
Wearable devices are making inroads in retail. What are your thoughts on the potential impact of this technology trend?
There is the potential of wearable technologies helping to provide enhancements to retail sales experiences, but we’re really focused on the mobile experience at this time.
Looking at the industry overall, what do you see as biggest operational challenges facing retailers and their trading partners?
A big operational challenge for retailers is how to fully utilize their retail associates and operations staff for a store, which are often the largest amount of employees for a company — around 94% of the people working at an organization. Often, these employees are the face of the brand but unfortunately are the least connected, lowest paid and under-appreciated with potentially high turnover rates. We think mobile has the opportunity to really transform the way retail associates are seen and function within an organization.
How will the products and services resulting from the IBM and Apple partnership address those challenges?
Our goal is to use mobile to enable store associates and operations staff to perform better with higher job satisfaction and potentially less turnover. We want to enable them to become more of a personal shopper for customers by having the real-time information about products, promotions, etc. in their hands anywhere on the sales floor to perform at a higher caliber for customers.
Put another way, how will the solutions developed as a result of this partnership redefine the way work gets done?
The solutions will improve business value in enterprise mobility, combined with data and analytics. Today, retailers have embraced mobile shoppers to stay competitive. But this work is all consumer-facing. Some advanced retailers are also empowering sales associates to complete sales transactions from a mobile device but mainly, on the enterprise side, a lot of what’s being done via mobile devices is little more than shifting activities from a desktop to a mobile device — such as email and calendaring — that rarely take advantage of the native capability of the device.
Omnichannel is a huge area of emphasis for most retailers these days. How will an IBM and Apple partnership help on this front?
In an omnichannel environment, there are ways to understand how each interaction impacts the customer experience. For example, on a website, retailers have data on how many people have abandoned a cart or are looking for specific items. This kind of data can give retailers ideas for how to improve the online shopping experience for consumers. However, today, there isn’t a wa