[b]Product Synopsis[/b]

This report presents the findings from a survey of 168 retailers regarding their Information and Communications Technology (ICT) investment priorities. The survey investigates the core technologies which retailers are investing in, including the likes of enterprise applications, security, mobility, communications and collaboration, and Cloud Computing.


[b]Introduction and Landscape[/b]

* Why was the report written?
- In order to provide deeper insights into retailers' ICT investment priorities and strategic objectives.
* What is the current market landscape and what is changing?
- According to Kable's survey, advanced technologies such as green IT and virtualization, communications and collaboration, and business intelligence are witnessing a significant uptake.
* What are the key drivers behind recent market changes?
- Retailers' need to improve their customer experience and storefront operations, reduce their operational costs and carbon footprints, and adhere to global carbon emission standards is driving the demand for advanced technologies such as green IT and virtualization, communications and collaboration, and business intelligence.
* What makes this report unique and essential to read?
- Kable Global ICT Intelligence has invested significant resources in order to interview CIOs and IT managers about their IT investment priorities. Very few IT analyst houses will have interviewed 160+ ICT decision makers in the retail industry in H2 2012.


[b]Key Features and Benefits[/b]

* Recognize retailers' strategic objectives with regards to their ICT investments.
* Identify retailers' investment priorities based on their budget allocations across core technology categories such as enterprise applications, security, mobility, communications and collaboration, and Cloud Computing, etc.
* Learn about the drivers that are influencing retailers' investments in each technology category.
* Establish how retailers' IT budgets are currently allocated across various segments within a technology category.
* Gain insight into how retailers' plan to change their ICT budget allocations across various segments within a technology category.


[b]Key Market Issues[/b]

In line with their strategic objectives of improving security and privacy, retailers are placing a high degree of importance on security, with 96% of respondents currently operating with such solutions in place.
In order to deal with continuously changing customer preferences, increasing competition, and rising churn rate, retailers are continuously looking to adopt various business intelligence (BI) tools such as data warehousing/marts and analytics.
The soaring demand for storing, managing, and retrieving the ever increasing volumes of business and customer data is driving the demand for various enterprise content management (ECM) solutions such as document management and records management amongst retailers
Retailers are placing a lot of emphasis on implementing a range of IT systems management solutions in order to reduce the complexity of their ICT infrastructure and achieve standardisation.
Retailers are looking to deploy various virtualization technologies such as server, storage, network, and desktop virtualization in order to reduce their infrastructure costs relating to servers, data centres, hard disk drives, computing devices and peripherals, and networking equipment.


[b]Key Highlights[/b]

With the increasing need to improve workflow and processes and reduce time to market for their products and services, the adoption of PLM and BPM solutions is set to witness an upward momentum as 53% and 54% of retailers are planning to invest in these applications respectively in the next two years.
Kable's survey finds that the demand for real-time business intelligence and social sentiment analysis is expected to increase within retailers, with 48% and 43% of respondents respectively planning to invest here in the next two years.
The survey reveals that content and web filtering is set to witness the highest adoption rate in the coming two years as 67% of retailers are planning to invest here during the specified period.
Although tablet computing is assigned a relatively low priority, the adoption of such solutions is set to gain traction as 54% of retailers are planning investments in this technology in the coming twenty-four months in order to improve productivity and provide flexibility to their shop floor employees and sales teams.
With a penetration rate of 74%, cloud computing is the least popular solution amongst retailers; however, advantages such as greater scalability, flexibility, reduced costs, and ease of management are set to provide some momentum to the adoption of such solutions.


[b]To order this report:[/b]

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SOURCE: Researchonglobalmarkets.com


[b]RELATED LINK:[/b]

http://www.researchonglobalmarkets.com/ict-priorities-in-the-retail-industry-enterprise-ict-investment-plans.html