The leading-edge solution for omnichannel retailing

Wincor Nixdorf has unveiled TP.net 5.5 which enables retail businesses to easily and cost-effectively implement omnichannel and mobile strategies to drive sales and operation efficiency and enhance the customer experience. Sharon Tian reports.

In South Korea, kids as young as six years old are wielding smartphones. It is also common that households use the smartphone to shop for groceries and shoppers check the prices of almost everything they consider buying first on their smartphones.

For Bernard Grellier, Wincor Nixdorf’s head of Solutions and Professional Services, Asia Pacific, these observations point to the inevitable rise of omnichannel shopping. Consumers are changing the way they shop and buy. The journey to shop starts with a research online using the computer or the smartphone, checking with friends in mobile chats and may end in a purchase of the product from the store or online using a mobile device.

“Omnichannel shopping is the trend, and consumers are shopping using whatever channel [they prefer] and demanding to a seamless experience across all channels,” said Grellier in an interview with Retail Asia. “This change of consumer behaviour is pushing retailers to re-think their store solutions.

“With omnichannel shopping, retailers are striving to provide a seamless experience across various channels. It is for example about providing the possibility for shoppers to check their local store inventory online and choose to pick up their purchases at a store or have them delivered at home, or enabling customers to redeem loyalty points at the store or online. But more importantly, price and promotions have to be consistent across channels.”

Grellier said this is where Wincor Nixdorf can be a valuable solution partner.

The latest iteration of Wincor Nixdorf’s leading software solution – known as TP.net 5.5 – is a complete omnichannel solution. Retailers can use TP.net 5.5 to connect their sales channels seamlessly and control them more efficiently.

The TP.net omnichannel solution includes the TP Application Suite software, a cross-channel merchandise management solution (TPOmm) and a customer relationship management solution (TPCustomer360).

“Wincor Nixdorf is ready to help retailers transform for the omnichannel world,” said Grellier, and Asian retailers must get into omnichannel early in order to avoid playing catch-up.

Grellier shared that many Asian retailers have approached Wincor Nixdorf because they want to expand internationally and are looking to keep up with the omnichannel trend.

“For clients, by tapping Wincor Nixdorf's expertise, implementing TP.net 5.5 is like buying a ticket to omnichannel, and buying an assurance to seamless international expansion.”

Software as a competitive strategy

Grellier said it is critical to invest in the right software platform so that the retail business can run efficiently and is agile to keep pace with market changes.

“Asian retailers are forward-looking and expanding aggressively – many are looking to expand beyond their domestic markets and to increase their number of stores to capture more business. Many have come to us to ask for advice on how they can transform their infrastructure to keep up with the changing market environment and to increase their operational efficiency.

“When a retailer reaches a certain size of operation and number of stores, the business challenge is to keep consistency across all the stores so that it can maximise store operation efficiency while keeping the operating cost low.”

Grellier said without an efficient store solution, a retailer could take weeks to implement a change, for example, having to go from store to store to deploy the change to the Point-Of-Sales. “For modern retailers, time-to-market is very critical. With a standard store platform, business decisions can be implemented very quickly and that can be a competitive advantage.”

When Asian retailers such as the largest Japanese fashion retailer and the largest multi-format retailer of Thailand want to expand overseas – going into new markets and increasing their store counts – having a standardised store solution from Wincor Nixdorf presents a competitive edge because the business strategy can be implemented in the shortest possible time.

SIDE STORY #1

TP.net 5.5 : The global software platform for omnichannel retailing 

The latest release of Wincor Nixdorf’s global software platform – TP.net 5.5 – has new features such as cross-channel merchandise management and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution.

These features provide an international multichannel retailer with consistent integration between sales, merchandise and customer data flows so that, for example, order processing and item availability check can be coordinated across channels.

In order to improve customer service in the store, TP.net 5.5 provides many functions on mobile devices running iOS and Android operating systems. Full-featured POS functionality on tablet PCs or user-friendly merchandise management on smartphones are just two examples of how staff flexibility and customer service can be improved.

“With TP.net 5.5, we met the challenge of introducing lots of innovative features, especially in the area of omnichannel and mobility, while keeping what made TP.net so strong and successful, namely a robust, feature-rich and truly international software product that satisfies the most demanding major retail organisations around the globe,” said Nicolas Pelletier, head of Product Line Retail Software at Wincor Nixdorf. “In addition, we extended our software portfolio with best-in-class applications delivering additional value to both retailers and consumers.”

Wincor Nixdorf will take care of integrating its software products in the customer’s landscape and manages all operations required during the lifetime of the solution. Proven, global standardised processes ensure the rapid transfer of the TP.net 5.5 solution to the client’s entire store network while maintaining complete process transparency.

The value of TP.net 5.5 is further enhanced with the support of Wincor Nixdorf Professional Services. “You can have the best software, but it will not be successful on the market without delivery and operations excellence. With our global Professional Services Organisation, and our Store Life Cycle Management operations model, we have a unique offering in terms of integration and operations services,” said Pelletier.

SIDE STORY #2

Tapping on Wincor Nixdorf
Professional Services for success 

Among the multitude of reasons why a retail organisation may choose to work with Wincor Nixdorf is the assurance of a high level of consulting and integration expertise and services.

“Our focus is to help our customers achieve their business and technology performance goals by implementing professionally our best-in-class retail solutions. To make this happen, our teams of experienced professionals follow industry standards and our Global Delivery Framework to deliver reliable solutions,” explained Bernard Grellier, Wincor Nixdorf’s head of Solutions and Professional Services, Asia Pacific.

“Retailers choose Wincor Nixdorf because we offer an international software solution that they are able to deploy in a consistent manner wherever in the world their stores are located, and we promise rapid international deployment.

“That is the reason why four of the top 10 fashion retailers have implemented TP.net. That is also why the largest Thai retailer chooses to work with us to implement a standard software platform across all their banners, including their supermarkets, department stores and convenience stores.”

Grellier said Wincor Nixdorf Professional Services understands the critical challenges retailers are facing, such as the need to get new stores up and running quickly, the demand for operational efficiency and resource mobility.

The Professional Services organisation in Asia Pacific comprises 200 software engineers located across Wincor Nixdorf centres in Asia, the majority of whom are in Singapore.

Grellier said one important role of Professional Services is to provide retail clients with support for change.

The retail sector faces constant change, including having to deal with fundamental changes in consumer purchasing behaviour, operation changes throughout the entire store lifecycle, IT systems upgrades and staff changes. Throughout all these, retailers can count on Wincor Nixdorf Professional Services for support to implement changes.

“Wincor Nixdorf is a trusted partner. Retail is our expertise; we have a whole suite of solutions from hardware to software to core enterprise platforms to help retailers stay agile and have the most efficient operations. And we have the expertise to put these solutions in place to run well,” said Grellier.