Why Retail Industry should use low-code solutions to revolutionize business processes?

Any modern retail business needs to be flexible and agile. A lot has changed in the retail space in the past decade, and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon. What worked yesterday for your retail business may not work today. One of the reasons many businesses struggle to stay relevant is because they find it challenging to implement new software, IT systems, or infrastructure within their business.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Low-code platforms are making this process much easier by empowering retail companies to rapidly respond to changing market conditions and customer demands.

This article looks at how your retail business can embrace innovative low-code solutions to remain competitive. Furthermore, we also look at how they can help you streamline business processes.

Challenges faced by retailer businesses worldwide

Supply chain problems are common with retail businesses. And the pandemic has only made it worse. Here are some critical challenges faced by retailers today.

• Digital transformation

  Digital transformation is a challenge faced by many organizations, but retail businesses have some unique hurdles to overcome. Retail businesses need to focus on customer experience, which means they need to adapt quickly to changing consumer trends.

  They also have to invest in new technologies that help them keep up with their competitors. These challenges can be difficult for many retailers because they lack the resources of larger companies and don’t always have the budget for new technology.

• Offering personalized services

  Offering a personalized experience to their customers is not possible for retail businesses that do not have enough customer data. Legacy systems can make it much more complicated to personalize customer services. In the hyper-competitive retail space, it may not be long before your customers switch their loyalties to your competitors.

• Limited time to innovate

  With an ever-growing number of retail stores and shopping malls, it’s hard for retailers to keep up with the ever-changing consumer trends. As a result, many retailers have limited time and resources to innovate their business processes. There is a need for retailers to streamline their ideation, designing, development, and sourcing processes. Doing so will help them open doors to innovation and offer a much better experience to customers.

• Highly fragmented IT landscape

  Retailers often face an IT landscape that is highly fragmented and inefficient because of various legacy systems in place. This makes it harder for them to integrate new systems into their existing workflow processes — which can negatively affect customer experience and result in higher costs and lower productivity levels at the back-end operations level.

• Supply chain management

  Enabling predictability in your supply chain is critical to make it resilient, especially in light of events like a pandemic. Traditional and legacy systems do not allow seamless connectivity with your suppliers in the logistics chain. There is thus a threat to operational continuity with unaligned systems.

How low-code solutions help retailers overcome these challenges

According to Gartner’s estimates, 70% of new apps developed by 2025 will be on low-code and no-code platforms. Low-code solutions are a great option for the retail industry to automate and streamline its business processes. By using low-code platforms like Mendix, you can build customized apps that will help improve the customer experience and engage them better.

Low-code solutions can bring a digital transformation in retail industry in the following ways.

• Easier application development

  Low-code technology will help non-developers from your retail business create their own applications without needing any programming experience. This makes it easier to get started with your retail project and allows you to focus on solving problems related to your retail business. You can accelerate application development and launch new app for your retail customers in no time.

• Faster time to market

  With less coding required, it’s much faster and easier to develop new features or change existing ones for your retail business. This means that you can launch new features quickly or modify existing ones quickly for your retail apps. Your retail business will be in a much better position to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.

• Improved customer engagement

  You can use low-code solutions to create apps that help your retail customers find what they’re looking for in stores, browse through products on display, place orders, or even pay for items on their mobile devices. A retail app built on the low-code technology will also be ideal to boost sales by delivering relevant offers and promotions directly to customers’ phones as they walk through a store or shop online.

• Increased Productivity

  By automating processes such as order management, inventory management, marketing campaigns and more, you can significantly increase productivity and reduce costs associated with manual tasks. It means less time spent doing routine tasks. Your employees can spend more time on higher-value activities such as interacting with customers to improve their digital retail experiences.

• Reduction in manual effort

  You can save time and money by reducing manual effort. Low-code platforms allow you to automate your processes by reducing the need for human intervention. It improves efficiency and reduces costs associated with training staff members or hiring contractors for certain tasks.

• Reduced errors due to human intervention

  Your retail business may witness thousands of transactions on a daily basis. When your business lacks automation in key areas like accounts and finance, it can cost you immensely. Manual systems are always prone to errors and can directly impact your profits. By automating your vital processes, low-code solutions help you overcome these challenges.

Bottom line

Low-code solutions for the retail industry have gained increasing momentum in recent years. They can help you automate your key processes in the supply chain. Ultimately, you will get better visibility of your warehouse stocks and understand the best times to replenish them. Low-code solutions also help you reduce the need for specialized developers and reduce your time to market.

Omnepresent is a leading provider of low-code solutions through the Mendix platform. We are a trusted Mendix application development partner that can help you digitally transform your retail business for improved efficiency and productivity. Our Mendix experts will help you gain speed, efficacy, and agility to grow your business like never before.

Contact us today to know more details about our Mendix consulting services.