Retail

The retail business is currently undergoing a period of great challenge and opportunity due to increasingly sophisticated consumers, a changing supply chain, emerging technologies and The Internet. 

Industry challenges include:

• Effective Content Management Systems.
• Personalized one-to-one marketing for each customer.
• Managing downsizing of brick and mortar stores while engaging younger customers.
• Restructuring internal processes and system to meet consumers need for prioritized new technology and real-time consumers.
• Mobile click-and-collect strategies.  Effectively switching from loyalty programs to platformed personalized rewards, products, and convenient buying experiences.
• Unify online and offline data.  Cost effectiveness of updating old systems to new Omnichannel platforms.
• Switching to single-view cloud based solutions and investing heavily in omnichannel fraud management.  
• Mobile devices were the start of IoT (Internet of Things) retail interactive shopping.  Wearables that interact with RFIDs with retail systems are needed to increase sales and connectivity customer trends.  Many retailers lack the strategy, support, and financial resources to implement this IoT technology effectively.     
• Omnichannel retailing introduces a lot of issues in terms of operations and fraud prevention.  Many retailers believe that they lack the tools and internal know how to effectively manage.  It is crucial to affordably and effectively implement fraud management solutions across channels.  54% of the retailers identified their in-house staff is not equipped to deal with omnichannel fraud challenges.  

Some of the ways that FLEX Consulting can help Corporations and Enterprises:

• Increase productivity and reduce costs through a plan of oversight and accountability with vendors, partners and resourcing firms, including cost-benefit analysis and feedback from business users.  Provide Budget vs Actual analysis of all resource firms utilized for implementations.  Clearly identify contract deviations and put steps in place for remediation.
• Implementation of solid portfolio management which provides full visibility of all activities between departments.  Improve communication between reporting areas (HR, Operations, IT, Sales, Marketing, Security) and provide tools for full transparency.
• Discovery and strategy development to revitalize financial retail management systems.
• Development and implementation of Omnichannel strategies, understand the value and potential ROI of IoT in retail
• Identifying customer and dealer input for improvements rather than prioritizing for best ROI across products

Some of the ways that FLEX Consulting can help Independent Retailers:

• Creation or updating of a business plan that includes financial budgeting, forecasting, product and pricing models.
• Assist with strategic investment plans for additional funding.
• Develop strategies for growth and resource/employee management.  
• Help you to know what you don’t know.  Research and create a product plan, business plan, or market analysis so you can focus on the daily business.
• Help with networking options for funding and future growth. 
• Manage HR, Payroll, Accounting, and Operations.       
• Identify inefficiencies and wasteful spending and optimize vendor relationships based upon price, quality and financial terms. 

How we've helped others:

• FLEX Consulting has lead discovery and strategy teams to revitalize financial retail management systems.  We've led implementation teams for Omnichannel and data lake implementations while keeping budget and financial impacts in front of executive leadership.  Helping companies understand the value and potential ROI of IoT in retail that could impact sales from $420 Billion to $1.2 trillion by 2025 and to look long term instead of short term for technology investments.
• For Trek Bicycles, we provided a variety of services aimed at lowering cost and increasing market-facing product focus.  Activities included implementation of Project Portfolio Management EPMO (Enterprise Project Management) strategies, deployment strategy for Trek’s multi-platform retail management system, resource management and ROI reporting.  FLEX Consulting worked with Trek’s executives, customers, and technology staff to create and deploy a long-term domestic and international RMS solution (Risk Management Strategy).
• For Kohl’s, we assisted with how to utilize business intelligence to optimize market engagement via new application and operations requirements, which were successfully implemented.  Activities included Program Management, Strategic Initiative Planning, Vendor Utilization, PII Compliance, and consolidating analytics across platforms and systems in a newly formed centralized data lake.
• FLEX Consulting helped 2Rivers Bicycle to optimize operations and business systems based upon market analysis, business intelligence and updated customer engagement strategies.  Activities included Business Planning, Strategic Financial Advisement and Accounting Services.