The research found that ERP implementations and upgrades are the most common, with a third of retailers with projects in this area. E-commerce and store systems replacements and upgrades came in second. Supply chain projects came in third among retailers surveyed.
That level of technology investment doesn’t come without problems, as over two-thirds of retailers surveyed said they suffer system bugs. E-commerce systems were the most problematic for retailers, with 14% saying they have problems with bugs. This is seriously challenging for retailers, since their websites are very often their only 24/7 communication channel with customers and any problems will have a serious impact on their ability to do business. As a head of IT at a fashion and lifestyle retailer explained, “It is difficult to test the website against every combination of device, browser and operating system and to simulate real-life conditions. The more functionally rich the website is, the more difficult it is to test.”
Where software bugs are concerned, the next most serious offenders are business intelligence, logistics/ supply chain and store systems. A third of the retailers experienced “other” IT problems; many of these were components of ERP systems.
These new industry revealing facts underline that LS Retail is right in its software strategy. To integrate retail software into the most advanced and popular ERP solution on the market, LS Nav provides the flexibility of limiting bugs and interfacing different systems together.
As LS Nav has extended its functionality into both mobile devices and e-commerce, the problems encountered in functionally-rich websites will be minimal. With LS Nav 2013 and the fast-coming LS Nav 2015 solutions, all inventory, price and other information are treated from the same ERP database, so there’s no need to test the website on different platforms or applications. All retail set-ups, be they stationary POS, mobile POS, customer loyalty and e-commerce, are considered as one.
Once again, LS Retail leads the way in taking away worry from retailers, leaving them with robust and easy-to-maintain software solutions.
Written by Sveinn Aki Ludviksson, Solution Sales Executive