This document discusses how retailers can deliver seamless experiences for customers by transforming their technology and operations. It outlines four directives for retailers to follow: 1) bring their core systems up to speed, 2) establish an infrastructure that allows for quicker innovation, 3) transform their data to provide a seamless customer experience, and 4) organize their operations to deliver seamless capabilities across channels. The document provides recommendations under each directive, such as assessing legacy systems, adopting cloud computing, ensuring data accuracy, and breaking down silos between departments. The overall message is that retailers must align technology, data, and organizational structures to keep up with constantly changing customer expectations.

1. Seamless Technology:
Unleashing an Integrated
Shopping Experience

2. Contents
Introduction 1
What retailers need to do
2
The journey to seamless technology
4
Bring your system up to speed
4
Establish an infrastructure that allows
you to innovate quicker
6
Transform your data to deliver a
seamless customer experience
8
Organize for seamlessness
10
What now? 100 days of progress
12
Take the next step
13
References
13

3. Seamless Technology 1
Retail will change more in the next five years than it
has in the past 50—but not all retailers are prepared.
It’s a future where retail organizations deliver seamless
experiences for non-stop customers. To keep up with
the frenetic pace of retail, the business—and the
technology to support it—must evolve.
Becoming fit and fast
enough to stay ahead
in the retail revolution
Today’s non-stop customer is online, on
the go, in stores and in touch with social
networks. They expect 24/7 access to
information from across channels, and they
are eager to get the product they want at
the price they want. To satisfy these hungry
consumers, retailers need to step up their
cross-channel game by incorporating
modern-day mobile and social features into
retail interactions. The winners will be those
that figure out how to grow all channels in
concert, and deliver a seamless customer
experience by integrating price, promotions,
product assortment and inventory
across channels.
Many retailers have doubled their capital
expenditures to invest in the new capabilities
required for providing a seamless experience.
Capabilities such as anywhere/anytime
fulfillment no matter the device are just
the table stakes in retail today. As the
number of technology options grows, so do
customer expectations. But as new, disruptive
technologies hit the market every day,
retailers are hamstrung by legacy technology
that doesn’t accommodate such capabilities.
How can retailers build a technology
framework that enables them to meet or
exceed the expectations of today’s digital
consumer, and be flexible enough to react
to tomorrow’s emerging offerings?
To move toward seamless, retailers must ask
tough questions about their IT environment:
Can we “service-enable” our legacy systems?
Do we have the right customer, product and other enterprise data;
is it clean and can we convert it to actionable insights?
Does the infrastructure allow us to enable an engaging, seamless
shopping experience?
Does it or can it support real-time and relevant customer
conversations, regardless of touch point?
Can we leverage what we have in place to pilot new capabilities?
Should our IT department take on new roles and responsibilities?

4. 2 Seamless Technology
What retailers need to do
From empowered customers and channel complexity to
warp-speed technology innovation, the new face of retail
is not for the meek.
This paper—part of Accenture’s series on
seamless retailing—is intended to provide retail
IT leaders with recommendations on what
they can do to align the role of technology to
become even more integral to the success of
the company’s seamless retail strategy.
While there will be changes in the business
model, organization, processes, human
resources and other enabling functions, this
paper focuses on four technology directives
retailers need to get right to support the
seamless retail vision.
1
2
3
4
Bring your system up to speed
Establish an infrastructure that
allows you to innovate quicker
Transform your data to deliver a
seamless customer experience
Organize to deliver seamless
capabilities to the business
Accenture’s evaluation of 60 global retailers
reveals a significant gap between reality and
expectations when it comes to delivering
on consumers’ demands.1 When comparing
things that were important to a consumer
versus the retailer’s ability to provide it,
retailers often scored only 1 out of 5.
Expectations
Reality

5. Seamless Technology 3
connected...
Digital consumers are
...are you?
Global internet usage will
more than double by 2015.2
Now
2015
Smartphone users spend a daily
average of 132 minutes using
social media on their phones.3
February 2010
17.1 billion minutes
February 2013
34.9 billion minutes
Consumer time spent with online
retail has jumped 104 percent from
17.1 billion minutes in February
2010 to 34.9 billion minutes in
February 2013.4

6. 4 Seamless Technology
T
he journey to seamless technology:
Four directives for transformation
1
Bring your system up to speed
Retailers are at various levels
of core strength; some have
integrated key elements, such
as inventory across channels
when it comes to technology.
Others have invested heavily in one particular
channel. Few have invested in the kind of
robust core that can seamlessly support all
channels. No matter where you are in the
journey, it is critical to transform the technical
spine of the enterprise to make use of legacy
systems while also building a solid foundation
for future digital expansion.
Seamless retailers can take these
steps to strengthen—and expand—
from the core:
Assess the future roadmap
Many retailers have opted to move to an ERP
system or upgrade an existing ERP system.
They believe their legacy systems can’t
carry them through the next wave of digital
expansion. The challenge is that large ERP
solutions are multi-year journeys, where real
benefit, particularly around seamless, won’t
be realized until late in the journey. At the
same time, CIOs must continue to quickly
deliver new seamless capabilities (often on
their legacy systems) to meet the evergrowing demands of customers. IT budgets
have grown—even doubled—to keep up
with these demands.
International grocery retailer Tesco, through its innovation
lab, is enabling solutions such as interactive screens and
micro-home delivery. They’ve explored mobile solutions, such
as mobile phone apps where consumers can scan products
and add them to a virtual shopping basket. The checkout
process is paperless, and reduced to a few clicks.5
Roadmaps are often disconnected as they
are developed within operational silos, or
with either a short-term focus on seamless
capabilities or a longer-term vision of
delivering transformational capabilities.
Retailers should combine these into one
enterprise roadmap that allows the business
to take a broader look at the plan and
prioritize based on where it can drive the
most value along the seamless journey.
Enable your architecture
Retailers should invest in service-enabling
their legacy systems. Done right, a serviceoriented architecture (SOA) enables complex
transactions, the kind that seamless retailers
require. For example, if a customer starts to
buy items in one channel, only to complete
the purchase in another, retailers will require
access to complex pricing, product availability
and customer data. SOA can provide this,
and unlock several opportunities.
Add item

7. Seamless Technology 5
• egacy solutions can last much longer when
L
they are service-enabled and can support
many seamless vision concepts.
• ome seamless capabilities can be
S
introduced and abstracted from the rest
of the architecture—inventory visibility,
for instance, can be introduced on top
of existing legacy architecture.
• OA allows a retailer to quickly take
S
advantage of solutions from third parties
and make things appear plug-and-play.
Invest strategically
Realign IT budget allocations to support a
more seamless view. This includes both where
you invest the money, as well as how you
take your organization through the budgeting
process. Finally, measure return on invested
capital closely. Quick-turn projects may yield
enough return on invested capital to pay for
themselves and support new capabilities.
• nnovations can be introduced faster.
I
Technologists and e-commerce business types contribute
to @WalmartLabs, which represents the fusion of retail,
social and mobile. One of the first projects originating from
WalmartLabs was Shopycat, a gift recommendation app
that scans your friends’ profiles to identify interesting gift
ideas from their stream of likes, comments and status updates.
Shopycat then seeks out an appropriate gift from
Walmart’s product database.7
Scale at speed
With the right infrastructure in place, you can
innovate more quickly. Some companies build
a formal place—such as an Innovation Lab—
where good ideas can take shape at speed.
For example, at Nordstrom Labs, a team of
techies, designers, entrepreneurs, statisticians,
researchers and artists collaborate to validate
ideas, whether new products and services,
or even innovation in operations, business
models and management.6

8. 6 Seamless Technology
2 Establish an infrastructure that allows
you to innovate quicker
Infrastructure is oftentimes
an inhibitor for retailers
because it takes a long time
to get right. The increasing
number and variety of devices,
demands for access—both
internal and external—and the
need to move at speed would
overstretch any organization.
Successful companies in a seamless model
create a technology infrastructure to flex
with the retail demands and, at the same
time, help increase sales and decrease costs.
This entails upgrading the infrastructure
to support increased remote connectivity,
cloud-based services and Bring Your Own
Device (BYOD) demands.
Retailers should focus on these
areas of their infrastructure to
enable flexibility and innovation
at speed:
Adopt cloud computing
A flexible cloud approach will make it easier
to move and innovate faster­ for example,
—
the ability to launch a new product website in
days rather than weeks or months. The cloud
also enables incremental capacity for times
of peak demand, for example, ramping up
online capabilities before the holiday season.
And hybrid cloud models integrate the private
and public cloud for greater elasticity during
changes in volume.
The cloud can provide computing “on demand,”
using infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
offerings to source raw computing resources,
processing power, network bandwidth and
storage whenever needed to support peak
times, such as holiday or major sales.
Successful companies will
support increased remote
connectivity, cloud-based
services and Bring Your Own
Device (BYOD) demands.
BYOD

9. Seamless Technology 7
Be mega mobile
More consumers are using mobile devices
for a better cross-channel experience or to
conduct tasks, such as checkout. Accenture’s
recent survey found that 50 percent of U.S.
consumers are willing to buy using their mobile
phone.8 And as more consumers go mobile,
more employees are using handheld devices
to support consumer needs. Being mega
mobile can bring the store to life in a digital
world, delivering a differentiated customer
experience that drives higher conversions.
There is a large market space in retail that
could foster rapid growth in mobile point of
sale (POS), which will mature the technology
and challenge the need for register POS for
larger players in the future. Some retailers,
such as Nordstrom, have already armed store
employees with mobile POS devices.
Accommodate devices
Numerous devices of a variety of types—
digital signage, self-checkout, personal devices
and employee devices—call for regular content
updates in the store. Retailers will increasingly
explore approaches that make it easier for
the business to offer secure and controlled
data access from any device. For example,
virtualization offers greater flexibility, such
as running Windows apps on Android or
Apple iOS devices. Also, software-as-a-service
(SaaS) solutions can lower the total cost of
ownership and cut IT costs.
Rethink the security model
Seamless retailers should re-examine how
they protect the technology environment, and
how they provide access. Internal and external
security must change to accommodate an
increasing number and variety of people and
devices accessing the network. This includes
third-party providers that use a separate
network, employees who bring their own
devices and consumers who need external
connectivity with the retail network.
An “active defense” approach will help control
and manage access to trusted or untrusted
devices and enable data loss prevention for
mobility. The retailer must also be able to
integrate with third-party networks using open
architecture cloud services. The cloud provides
an extra layer of security.9
Leading organizations will understand the
business consequences of inevitable data leaks
and respond proportionally; different levels
of attack require a different speed, scale and
type of response.10
Data leaks

10. 8 Seamless Technology
3 Transform your data to deliver a
seamless customer experience
There is no shortage of data
in a retailer’s ecosystem. Huge
volumes of data are coming
from point of sale, social
media placements, shipments,
inventory, employee data,
third parties and more.
100%
Aim for 100 percent
data accuracy
A lack of data accuracy is like
playing with fire. For example,
if a customer visits the store
expecting to find an item, but
your inventory data is wrong,
they won’t see the item—and
you risk not seeing them
again in your store.
This data explosion creates opportunities to
analyze across the enterprise to yield better
decisions about everything from inventory
forecasting to how to personalize the online
brand experience. However, before this
information can be analyzed, it must be
accurate, high quality and shared frequently.
You can also manage data better and faster
than ever before. Rather than relying on
retail data platforms that have been built
around functions, seamless retailers are taking
advantage of disruptive technologies that
are built around flexibility. Today’s enterprise
data platforms connect data from across the
business to allow retailers to collect, store and
act on data seamlessly and efficiently—all at
a lower cost than traditional methods.
Create an agile architecture
There are two different architectures
developing in a parallel way today—traditional
enterprise data warehouses (EDWs) and Big
Data. Retailers can combine the two to get the
best of both capabilities. Big Data can help to
create an enterprise data hub, which then feeds
operational data stores that fuel analytics.
In this way, data can be loaded in near-real
time and analytics can be delivered within
hours, minutes or even seconds. This instant
access allows retailers to analyze data and
make decisions at critical points in time.
Reacting to consumers with such speed can
ultimately change buyer behavior and purchase
decisions. Furthermore, managing and updating
prolific content regularly keeps things timely
and relevant for consumers.
Retailers should consider these
principles to get more from
their data:
Think about data differently
If the data is not seamless, the experience
is not seamless. Data fiefdoms prevent
retailers from achieving a holistic view of
the consumer—and the business itself. By
rethinking the data ecosystem (including all
customer-facing and back office data) and
taking a consistent, integrated approach,
retailers can improve visibility and accuracy.
This clearer view extends beyond the consumer
to also include product and other key retail
elements. Consistent product information and
other content delivered on a frequent and
accurate basis is the foundation of seamless.
Organize for effectiveness
Data has often been under the jurisdiction
of each functional silo. As the organization
moves toward seamless technology, the
governance model should change as well.
Retailers must decide who owns the data.
This “data lead” should be accountable for
establishing a seamless data vision, and
ensuring that data is collected, managed
and analyzed in ways that adhere to the
vision. Organizations could place a chief
customer officer, chief channel officer
or chief marketing officer in this role.

11. Seamless Technology 9
Integrated Enterprise Analytic Platform
Teradata EDW
POS
ETL
Reports
Dashboard
Analytics Apps
MDM
Hadoop Layered Enterprise Data Hub
Inventory
Staging
Cleansed
Other internal
Golden
Analytics
App
Specific
Add layers
as needed
Visualization
Other external
Exploratory DWCMs
Copyright 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Analytics
Models Apps
SAP HANA
1. everage Big Data technology to create an
L
enterprise data hub. POS, inventory and
other data can be loaded in batches or in
real time. By using Hadoop, key analytics
can be delivered in hours versus days,
weeks or months.
2. implify the building of the Teradata
S
EDW by leveraging the enterprise
operational data store (ODS).
This architecture is much more flexible,
nimble, and powerful because it builds
on existing investments.
3. ntegrate the analytic tools with the
I
analytic stores.
The future will be marked by a
blend of database heavyweights,
like Oracle and Teradata, and new
open-source projects—such as
Hadoop—that are making sense
of the flood of data generated
by the digital revolution.11
Customer buying
behavior data
10 %
sales boost
Macy’s increased store sales by 10 percent by
leveraging terabytes of data about customer
buying behavior.

12. 10 Seamless Technology
4
Organize for seamlessness
Few retailers have
successfully consolidated
marketing, merchandising
and supply chain silos to
build an omni-channel
organization that supports
one seamless vision of
serving the customer.
How can retailers connect the seams to
support a cohesive customer experience and
drive growth across all channels? IT can lead
a “one-channel” team that seizes every
opportunity to make connections that
yield better business outcomes across
the enterprise.
IT as a leader in innovation and
business strategy
To bring the best, up-to-the-minute
capabilities to customers, IT must be fast
in identifying how the latest in technology
innovation can support or lead business
strategy and innovation.
To unleash the power of truly
integrated IT, organizations
must embrace new roles
for IT including:
Some leading companies are initiating the
role of a chief technology officer (CTO) to
stay on top of emerging technologies that
will differentiate the company. Separate
from the CIO, whose role is to focus on
enabling the business, the CTO focuses on
the development of new technologies and
strategies to enable new capabilities and
speed to market.
One-channel team
IT can lead a “one-channel” team
that seizes every opportunity
to make connections that yield
better business outcomes across
the enterprise.

13. Seamless Technology 11
IT as a key contributor to the business
transformation agenda
Few retailers successfully align their IT and
business transformation agendas. Oftentimes,
these agendas may come together once
a year during the annual planning cycle.
Instead, IT and business program leadership
should come together within one integrated
“business transformation office” to ensure
ongoing, year-round strategy and priority
alignment. The office will help to avoid
conflicting priorities and diluted focus, and
it can improve corporate agility by breaking
down functional silos. The right resources will
be directed to the highest priority programs.
This office should also be responsible for
measuring the success of IT initiatives.
IT as a leader of the seamless
retail agenda
IT should play a lead integrator role in
programs such as:
• ooking across the entire business to serve
L
as the protector of data integrity, security
and consistency throughout all systems
and processes.
• onnecting store and online channels
C
in a flexible fulfillment model.
• nabling new digital connections that
E
improve the ways in which retailers
interact with consumers.
• Migrating from custom applications
that meet the needs of one business and
require decisions at one level, to enterprise
applications that will require decisions at
an enterprise level.
IT as an enabler of corporate agility
and efficiencies through key alliances
Cloud technologies and other third-party
partner models are enabling organizations to
gain competitive advantage by piecing together
the right components at the right price and
the right time, rather than building them
in-house. IT must own the process for piecing
together these capabilities into a seamless
experience for employees and consumers.
By collaborating with suppliers, IT will no
longer have to source scarce talent to support
new technologies. However, this will have
major implications for current IT talent as they
will be leveraged in new ways. There will be
less need for applications experts and a shift
toward higher-value activities in areas such as
understanding business needs, and managing
relationships with business customers and
cloud suppliers.
Walmart Chief Technology Officer
Chip Hernandez is responsible
for developing and maintaining
a technology strategy supporting
Walmart’s corporate strategic plan.

14. 12 Seamless Technology
What now? 100 days of progress
There’s no reason to wait for seamless technology.
Start today and take these actions over the next
100 days to accelerate your speed to seamless.
Create a consolidated
roadmap to outline the
best short- and longterm ideas to support
the seamless vision,
and then prioritize the
ones that offer the
most value.
Start less and finish
more. Evaluate current
initiatives against what
will drive the most value
for the business. Double
down on those initiatives
that offer the most
value, and stop those
that don’t.
Think about the timing
of next-generation
capabilities and don’t
invest ahead of the curve.
Begin to outline the
roles, responsibilities
and people that can
support your seamless
organization.

15. Seamless Technology 13
Take the next step
Accenture has a dedicated team focused on helping retailers build
the technology foundation to support seamless retail.
For more information please contact:
Global
Europe
Chris Donnelly
christopher.donnelly@accenture.com
Adrian Bertschinger
adrian.bertschinger@accenture.com
Asia Pacific
North America
Takaaki Haraguchi
takaaki.haraguchi@accenture.com
Dave Richards
david.t.richards@accenture.com
References
1 Accenture Seamless Retail Consumer Survey, November 2012
2 loget, Henry; The Business Insider, The Future of Mobile; Retrieved online March 2012 at http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-ofB
mobile-deck-2012-3#-11
3 DC report, Always Connected: How Smartphones and Social Media Keep us Engaged, sponsored by Facebook
I
4 omScore Inc., State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy, Q1 2013; Retrieved online May 2013 at http://www.comscore.com/Insights/
c
Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2013/State_of_the_US_Online_Retail_Economy_Q1_2013
5 cNamara, Mike, Tesco Chief Information Officer; September 2012; Retrieved video: Take a shopping trip into the future, online at
M
https://www.tescoplc.com/talkingshop/index.asp?blogid=63
6 etrieved online September 2013 at http://nordstrominnovationlab.com
R
7 houltz, Mike; Will Walmart Labs Make Walmart More Innovative in E-commerce?; Digital Spark Marketing, Retrieved online September 2013
S
at http://www.digitalsparkmarketing.com/innovation/walmart-labs/
8 Accenture Seamless Retail Consumer Survey, November 2012
9 etail Information Systems News, Rethinking TCO for POS; Retrieved online July 2012 at http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-whitepapers/
R
Rethinking-TCO-for-POS80966
10 Accenture Technology Vision 2013, page 68
11 Winkler, Rolfe; Elephant in the Room to Weigh on Growth for Oracle, Teradata, Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2013

16. 14 Seamless Technology
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with approximately
266,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities
across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s
most successful companies, Accenture
collaborates with clients to help them
become high-performance businesses and
governments. The company generated net
revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is
www.accenture.com.
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