Fujitsu : A faster way to develop new retail services

Today, the smartphone is increasingly at the heart of the user experience for customers and employees. I'll run through three examples to show how this works in practice.

The first example is queue-free shopping. While most of the attention here has been on cashier-less stores, this is not a model that suits all retail customers. MSA is the recommended solution when retailers want to make back-end operations as easy and exciting as the front end of their business. Additional benefits include the stability that MSA brings to the IT infrastructure.

Fujitsu is working with U.S.M. Holdings, leveraging MSA and open APIs, on another way to achieve frictionless shopping but at a much more economical investment level. It is a walk-through checkout. The system recognizes a customer is in your store either by scanning a QR code with a smartphone to check-in, or from GPS data. The customer - who will have previously registered a payment card - selects items to buy and scans the bar codes to the phone. When they finish shopping, they scan a QR code and walk out. Payment is automatic with no standing in line at a checkout.

In example two, the same MSA/Open API approach also works for online shopping. Using a retailer's mobile app, customers select local stores identified by their location. The system connects to an auto-promotion engine that offers relevant discounts or loyalty points, puts the items in the cart and handles the payment. The app allows multiple fulfillment options, either delivered to your home or a BOPIS option.

Final example: When it comes to improving store or warehouse efficiency, retailers are struggling to overcome current labor recruitment challenges, such as delivery drivers and order pickers. Maximizing the efficiency of your current labor resource is a top priority and technology can help, although many tier-two retailers lack capability here.

BOPIS or home delivery orders are allocated to a picker on a smartphone app. The picker gets the itemized order and information on where to find it, saving time. The app can also prioritize what products or categories to pick, for example, delaying picking frozen items to the last. An alternative in-stock SKU is provided for any out-of-stocks.

In each of these examples, the key is to arrange each capability as discrete microservices that can be linked to others via open APIs, for example, merchandise lookup or loyalty points data.

If this is an approach that would increase the agility of your innovation programs, you can learn more on www.fujitsu.com/retail.