How the Cloud is Revolutionizing the Retail Industry

How the Cloud is Revolutionizing the Retail Industry

01 | How the Cloud is Revolutionizing the Retail Industry

Over the past 10 years, the cloud has gone from an obscure concept to a buzzword. By 2020, the global market for cloud equipment will reach $90 billion, according to the latest forecast by Allied Market Research. Even SMBs can readily opt for the cloud model, taking into consideration the low costs involved, the flexibility, the new services offered, and the ease of adoption. Cloud Computing is up to 40 times more cost effective for an SMB, compared to running its own IT system.

A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF CLOUD COMPUTING:Cloud computing can be described as a way of ac-cessing data and programs from the Internet rather

than directly from a computer or privately hosted server. Essentially, cloud computing stores all data on third party servers located at a separate location from the company. The setup and maintenance of these servers are the responsibility of the third party, leaving the retailer free to worry about business rather than software and hardware.The term cloud is a metaphor for the Internet. Com-puting refers to anything you do on a computer: ac-cess programs, save and retrieve data and share files with others. Cloud solutions are available on demand, paid for on a subscription, and are able to scale as usage increases.

How the Cloud is Revolutionizing the Retail Industry

Copyright 2015 Raymark Xpert Business Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cloud Facts: According to the Harvard Business Review Analytics Services Report, 40% of re-spondents have found that using cloud has increased revenue, with 36% saying it has increased profit mar-gins. 12.5% of respondents saw a return on investment in less than one year while 5.1% saw a return on invest-ment in less than three years.

Cloud-based POS systems have proven that they can outperform old-fashioned registers in any aspect.

Cloud makes innovation easier and faster, with fewer risks.



1

COST EFFICIENCY

The top reason for deploying cloud is lowering IT costs. Cloud benefits include hardware and software cost savings, and lower external main-tenance costs. Retailers also save money on server maintenance by moving to the cloud. The money saved from moving to the cloud can be used for opening new stores or hiring more employees. Retailers have long favored highly visible investments, such as store design or advertising over spending on back-office IT systems.

2

SCALABILITY

Cloud computing offers a growing company easy access to more room for data storage and application expansion without having to purchase additional equipment. Retailers have periods of high demand spikes during weekends and certain seasons, holidays and promotional cam-paigns. Using traditional IT infrastructure to accommodate the peak demand periods would mean idling the IT capacity for long periods. One major advantage of cloud computing is that the IT infrastructure can be designed for normal activity and additional compute resources can be sourced on demand to handle the high demand periods.

3

RELIABILITY

With a managed service platform, cloud computing is much more reli-able and consistent than in-house IT infrastructure. Many cloud pro-viders provide 24/7/365 support and 99.99% availability to ensure that any issues are dealt with quickly. Retailers can benefit from a massive pool of redundant IT resources. Also, if a server fails, hosted applica-tions and services can easily be moved to any other available server.

4

EFFICIENCY

5

QUICK DEPLOYMENT TIME

Cloud computing options allow employees to work from anywhere in the world at any time through devices that are able to have access to the internet. Employees will always have access to data in real-time. IT resources are delivered quickly and efficiently whenever and wherever the retailer needs them at a cost-efficient price.

One of the biggest advantages of a cloud based system is that it can be easily setup in a very short period of time. The addition of new instances can be performed very quickly. In a cloud environment, software can easily be integrated. Hence, minimum effort is required to customize and integrate the applications.

TOP 5 ADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING


THE ECONOMICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING:Proponents of cloud computing argue that one of the best rea-sons to convert is that using it gives one the ability to save money due to 4 reasons: allowing for more focus to occur on core activi-ties, lowering the opportunity cost of running technology, allow-ing for a shift from capital expenditure to operating expenditure and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of technology.

1. Allowing for More Focus to Occur on Core Activities

Most economic advantages are related to this concept. Studies have suggested that as much as 80% of an IT department’s time is engaged in activities not related to business, such as patching systems or performing data backups, while only 20% of the time is devoted to actually running applications. Since running applica-tions is directly related to revenue-generating activities, cloud computing can save money and improve productivity.

2. Lowering the Opportunity Cost of Running Technology

Opportunity cost is defined as:

“The added cost of using resources (as for production or specula-tive investment) that is the difference between the actual value resulting from such use and that of an alternative (as another use of the same resources or an investment of equal risk but greater return)”

In other words, determining an opportunity cost involves com-paring the total economic gain or loss (including increasing

profits) of implementing a technology vs. the total economic gain or loss of another technology.

In terms of cloud computing, this represents comparing imple-menting a cloud computing software program vs. keeping a large in-house IT department to maintain owned technology. The opportunity cost of keeping in-house IT is done by calculating the current profits and costs.

Determining the opportunity costs of cloud computing is an-other matter. Since the mechanisms of in-house IT are already in place, initially it may appear that cloud computing would increase costs and therefore be inherently foolish to engage in. However, after including the shift away from time devoted to technology maintenance to running business applications, it quickly becomes apparent that in most situations, cloud computing increases productivity and therefore increases the amount of profit made by a company.

3. Allowing for a Shift from Capital Expenditure to Operating Expenditure

There are countless advantages to moving away from capital expenditures towards operating expenditures. Cloud comput-ing is a recurring expense. With in-house hosting, the server and software purchased is fully committed to, and depreciates in value over time.


“Ultimately, the cloud is the latest example of Schumpeterian creative destruction: creating wealth for those who exploit it; and leading to the demise of those that don’t.”

- Joe Weinman, author of the book “Cloudonomics”


Regardless of how much it is being utilized, the ongoing costs (by way of depreciation or financing costs) still need to be taken into account.

Estimated costs of infrastructure for two application servers, two database servers and a load-balancer across internal, managed and Cloud deployment models. Source O’Reilly Media: George Reese

Putting aside enough capital for a large purchase is difficult, especially for small and medium size retailers. The cloud model bypasses this limitation and allows software to be implemented with minimal financial constraints.

4. Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Technology

With the cloud model, most costs are up-front and readily calcu-lated. Most importantly, retailer businesses can focus their time and energy on their core business without the worries of own-ing, maintaining and running a server with an internally hosted

retail platform and various software. The convenience of 24/7 IT support for head office infrastructure, network and software upgrades, along with included remote backup services are also important advantages. The retailer can now manage their us-ers and products anytime and anywhere. Store inventory and store statistics are available in real-time and accessible from any device.

Lastly, a sometimes forgotten benefit of cloud technology is that it enables collaboration through its omnipresence. Because the cloud has the capacity to be everywhere at the same time, it en-ables collaboration. In the past, this collaboration was more dif-ficult to access with a traditional disconnected IT environments.

Cloud computing now makes it possible for retailers to meet their consumers’ expectations during all phases of the omni-channel shopping experience. There are significant economic benefits to be gained from a move to cloud computing. Retailers benefit in two distinct ways: directly through reduced costs and indirectly by allowing for increased focus on core business functions.

“We are at the beginning of the age of planetary computing. Bil-lions of people will be wirelessly interconnected, and the only way to achieve that kind of massive scale usage is by massive scale, brutally efficient cloud-based infrastructure.” - Dan Farber, Editor in Chief CNET News



GENERAL1. What’s the difference between Raymark’s cloud solutions?

Raymark’s cloud solutions offer retailers a great package to get started quickly using the newest mobile retail technology with no upfront investment, no long-term commitment and minimal setup. The software, features and user experience are the same whether you decide to host the solutions yourself or let Raymark take care of it.

HARDWARE2. Which devices/operating systems can I use?

The solution provides full device-agnostic functionality enabling you to run completely wireless stores. Raymark’s cloud solutions for retail can be accessed on PC, iPad, Android or Windows Tab-lets. Its real-time capabilities make it a must-have for up-to-the second access to product and customer information.

PLANS3. What services are included with the plans?

• 24/7 applications usage

• Daily import of account data

• Data & apps servers hosting

• Managed services

• 24/7 help desk & maintenance

• 24/7 access to online documentation

• 24/7 access to RITS (Raymark Issue Tracking System)

4. Which features are included?

For a full feature listing, please consult the Raymark website. The full suite of Raymark applications is available on a host server or hosted in the cloud. Our solutions are available as single mod-ules or as an end-to-end suite.

IMPLEMENTATION AND DATA INTEGRATION5. What’s the implementation time?

Some retailers can get up and running within 3 weeks. This largely depends on the number and complexity of integrations with third party systems you will require.

6. Can the data in the solution be integrated with current software?

Raymark’s easy-to-use integration tool can be used to map existing data stores for elements such as associates, customers, products, stores and transactions.

7. What is the downtime needed for maintenance?

Minimal. If ever required, a time would be selected when the business activities would be least affected.

STORE OPERATIONS8. What changes do I need to make in the store in order to imple-ment Raymark Cloud?

All you need is a secure wireless internet connection to use Ray-mark Cloud in your stores. Most often, no changes to the existing hardware infrastructure are required.

9. What happens if there’s a lost internet connection?

In the event of a lost internet connection, you can continue to run Mosaic Point of Sale by connecting with Raymark’s stand-alone solution, installed on any PC in the local network. The standalone solution includes a subset of the centralized data-base stored locally, with minimal information in order to keep the store operating in the case of an outage. When internet is restored, data will automatically by synchronized with the central-ized database.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Raymark meets the needs of retailers searching for a rapidly deployed, fully-integrated retail software suite with our cloud-based hosted and managed services. Reliable and affordable, all Raymark solutions are available as a subscription-based service (Software as a Service, or SaaS) that reduces the upfront capital investment associated with retail enterprise software. Focused on responsive customer support and dependable, dedicated server management, Raymark ensures the security and scalability of your applications and data, providing you with reliable hosting services throughout your enterprise.

What can Raymark Cloud do for you?

Data Access and Control You retain ownership and control of all your data: customer, product, transaction, etc. Your data is 100% secure and will never be accessed or shared with anyone.

Minimize Onsite IT Support 24/7 help desk support, service management of your new data center, software maintenance and server management.

CentralizedA centralized database for all store and head office functions and centralized hosting.

Minimize Total Cost of Ownership No large upfront capital investment or complicated infrastructure.

Simple and Rapid Deployment Get back to the business of retail and let us take care of the technical tasks.

Training and Documentation Learn best practices for efficient use of Raymark solutions with access to user documentation, release notes and customer forums through Raymark’s Customer Portal. Additional individualized training is always available upon request.

Retail Business Challenge

We need software to manage our business, but don’t want to implement a large infrastructure or undertake high upfront costs.

Raymark Solution

For a single monthly fee, a web-based, hosted solution provides full retail functionality while eliminating the need for large upfront capital investment or complicated infrastructure.

Proven Retail Benefit

Most organizations devote 80% of IT resources to simply maintaining the status-quo. Implementing Raymark Cloud provides the benefits of an in-house IT department without all of the costs.


Raymark Services Raymark Cloud

EMPOWERING RETAIL

Raymark North America5460 Côte de Liesse Rd.Montreal, QuebecH4P 1A5, Canada

www.facebook.com/RaymarkRetail

www.linkedin.com/company/Raymark

www.twitter.com/RaymarkRetail

t. 514-737-0941f. 514-737-0014Toll Free: [email protected]

Secure Hosting Services• Certified, secure infrastructure

• Dedicated network

• Secure, redundant data centers

• Microsoft hosting environment

• Fast provisioning

• Control panel for Windows servers

Features

Enterprise Reporting &Business Intelligence

Planning & InventoryManagement

Customer-CentricRetailing

Web Services API

Store Operations

Data Model Business Logic Workflows IntegrationSolution Framework

point of sale & store operations

associatemanagement

mobile e-payment

consumermobile

mobileclienteling

clienteling CRM

merchandising replenishment

warehousing & distribution

purchasing merchandiseplanning

assortmentplanning

financiallink

reportingbusiness

intelligence

Raymark Database

Raymark BI Cubes

Freedom and Security• High availability

• Customizable configuration

• Automated backups

• Customizable configuration

• Free software updates

• All software maintenance is included

Around the Clock Service• 24x7 customer support

• 24x7 server monitoring

• 24x7 access to applications

• 24x7 access to all data

Raymark5460 Côte de Liesse Montréal, QuébecCanada H4P 1A5T: 1-800-346-7296F: 1-514-737-0014E: [email protected]: www.raymark.com

For 25 years, Raymark has been empowering retail with leading-edge enterprise software solutions that help the world’s most prestigious international retailers optimize stock turns, build customer loyalty, and increase sales. Raymark develops and markets the ultimate suite of flex-ible and interconnected applications deployed in a centralized environ-ment and offers professional turnkey solutions including implementa-tion, training and customer support. www.raymark.com