Application of Cloud Computing in the Retail sector
- 1. Cloud Computing and the Retail sector Prepared by: Nupur Agarwal Ramiz Sheikh Sadiya Yasmin Shreepriya Uttama Sah
- 3. CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing is a method for delivering information technology (IT) services in which resources are retrieved from the Internet through web-based tools and applications, as opposed to a direct connection to a server. the information being accessed is found in "the cloud" and does not require a user to be in a specific place to gain access to it
- 4. CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ● Device and location independence ● On-demand self-service ● Broad network access ● Resource pooling ● Reliability ● Scalability ● Security ● Maintenance ● Performance ● Flexibility and elasticity ● Productivity and cost reduction ● Multi-tenancy
- 5. Models of Cloud Computing ● Public Cloud – Whole computing infrastructure is located on the premises of a cloud computing company that offers the cloud service. ● Private Cloud – Hosting all your computing infrastructure yourself and is not shared. The security and control level is highest while using a private network. ● Hybrid Cloud – using both private and public clouds, depending on their purpose. You host your most important applications on your own servers to keep them more secure and secondary applications elsewhere. ● Community Cloud – A community cloud is shared between organizations with a common goal or that fit into a specific community (professional community, geographic community, etc.).
- 6. Types of Cloud Computing services ● Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)- IaaS is the most basic category that allows you rent IT infrastructure (servers or VM’s) from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis. ● Platform as a service (PaaS)- Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) refers to the supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering and managing software applications. It is designed to quickly create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, network and databases needed for development.
- 7. Types of Cloud Services ● Software as a service (SaaS)- It is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet as per the demand and on a subscription basis. SaaS helps you host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure and handle any maintenance (software upgrades and security patching). ● Functions as a service (FaaS)- FaaS adds another layer of abstraction to PaaS, so that developers are completely insulated from everything in the stack below their code. Instead of handling the hassles of virtual servers, containers, and application runtimes, they upload narrowly functional blocks of code, and set them to be triggered by a certain event. FaaS applications consume no IaaS resources until an event occurs, reducing pay-per-use fees.
- 8. APPLICABILITY: Improved channel operations ● Customers expect a personalized interaction with you regardless of the channel. ● Prevent them from effectively integrating operations such as inventory, shipping or POS. ● By moving to the cloud, it is much easier to deliver the seamless customer experience that consumers demand.
- 9. Greater supply chain visibility ● With cloud computing, retailers can gain much better visibility into their supply chain across the entire enterprise as every part of the business is connected to the cloud. ● That means less stock-outs, optimized inventory levels and enables retailers to capture real-time location data on inventory so ensuring that it is optimally positioned in the supply chain
- 10. Personalized customer service ● The cloud helps you gain real-time access to customer data so enabling store associates to instantly pull up the sales history of a particular customer or check on the status of an order, irrespective of the channel used to place the order. ● With a 360-degree of the customer, retailers can get closer and offer personalized recommendations or special offers that are more likely to be successful.
- 11. Greater insights into business performance ● A retail business generates a considerable amount of data but traditionally that data has been fragmented across functional silos and different IT systems, which makes it difficult to see well your retail business is performing. ● By moving to the cloud, you can tear down those IT silos and allow information to flow more smoothly throughout the organiation.
- 12. Lower operational costs ● With cloud computing you only pay for what you use. That can produce a big saving on operational costs because the utilization rates for in-house computer hardware are often less than 20 percent In addition, hardware and software updates are managed by cloud service providers, which again reduces your opex budget.
- 13. Retail IT Solution in a Nutshell
- 14. How CROMA plans to use Analytics… • All the production workloads will be cloud based – Scalablitiy & Security (Hybrid Cloud Strategy) • Customer Analytics – Tata iQ • Establishing Grade Order Management System • MIS Reporting – Completely Automated. • In store Experience - AR & VR ,Machine Learning ,IoT,Mobility.
- 15. Cloud Computing in Retail Industry • Cloud Computing – Efficient in Collection and analyses of huge amount of Sales data(In Real time Inventory management System). • The cloud provider can identify the trend and seasonality component of each product, brand or category and identify and monitor the performance. • Thus retailers can increase their ability to forecast their customer's behavior and plan accordingly. POS(Point of Sale) System Retailers Cloud Storage Providers Fig: Process of flow of sales data originating from POS systems and reaching to the retailers via cloud
- 16. Some Cloud computing providers and their specific products and services Company Product Product Description Oracle Oracle Retail With Oracle Retail, retailers can align corporate objectives with deployment strategies to deliver superior customer experiences and drive profitable growth. NetSuite NetSuite for Retail NetSuite for Retail is the only cloud business software solution that brings together every step of a multi-channel, multi- location retail business— POS, ecommerce, CRM, marketing, merchandising, inventory and order management and financials
- 17. Company Product Product Description Salesforce.com Sales Cloud and Salesforce for CRM Salesforce Retail Clienteling takes the “Little Black Book” of retail and blends the best of physical retail —great stores, inspiring product, responsive sales associates —with the #1CRM platform of Salesforce. The Boundariess between physical and digital retailing have disappeared. With Retail Clienteling, retailers can bring a whole new level of personalization to the shopping journey.
- 18. BENEFITS TO THE RETAILERS ● Cost Saving- the cloud helps to reduce unnecessary investment on in-house server storage and additional savings on air-conditioning, power and administration. ● Reliability- with a managed service platform, cloud computing is much more reliable and consistent than in-house IT infrastructure. ● Manageability- cloud computing provides enhanced and simplified IT management and maintenance capabilities through central administration of resources and vendor management. ● Accessibility- it is made accessible to the users without much restrictions so the employees can work in better coordination. ● Flexibility- employees can operate the cloud from anywhere, hence bringing in more comfort to the employees resulting into better results.
- 19. CHALLENGES TO CONSIDER ● Downtime- overloading because of happy clients may ruin the functionality of the system and affect business ● Internet- no access to applications without internet or on slow networks. ● Security- although the providers implement best security services, yet storing important documents and files on cloud are always risky because the data is hackable. ● Vendor lock-in- switching cloud services from one vendor to another hasn’t gained too much of development and hence the users may get stuck with one service provider. ● Limited control- majority of the management is controlled by the vendor, the customer only manages and controls the application, data and services operated on top of that