Trends in the Russian IT market in retail

Main article: Trends in the Russian IT market

2021

The difficult year 2020 has forced retailers to make operational decisions and find opportunities for rapid changes in order to maintain sustainable work even in such difficult conditions. Large network companies were engaged in the development of contactless customer service options, finalized online interaction opportunities, and improved logistics. It was much more difficult for non-network retail, but even they managed to adapt to the new conditions and draw appropriate conclusions for the future. About what trends in the field of digitalization of Russian retail can be traced in 2021, TAdviser spoke with experts from domestic IT companies involved in this industry.

Transform major retailers into IT companies

Key market players become essentially IT companies or innovators. They themselves create advanced solutions for the industry and do this even faster than profile competitors.

Of course, they implement many interesting projects together with the market, but at the same time they have large and strong teams of their own, "said Gennady Tarantasov, commercial director of KORUS Consulting Group of Companies.

Accelerate the development of new IT solutions

There has been a trend in retail to accelerate the development and implementation cycle of new solutions - now, to ensure its own competitiveness, the retailer simply has to follow market trends and rapidly changing customer needs.

In this regard, the issue of the speed of providing the business and the buyer with the necessary tools is of particular urgency. Therefore, it is possible to predict an increase in interest in automation of the development pipeline and microservices in order to ensure the life cycle of business functions, "says Dmitry Smirnov, Director of Business Development of the IT company CRIC in retail.

Gennady Tarantasov from KORUS Consulting adds that in addition to the transition to microservice architecture, within the framework of this trend, the need for custom development is increasing.

Increasingly, retailers have situations that there is no IT product they need in the market, and it is easier for them to create know-how themselves - a serious system or a small solution for a specific function, "he explains.

Development of chat bots

Experts notice the increased relevance of chat bots. Moreover, such solutions are becoming in demand both inside the company and outside. Timur Kholmukhamedov, Webim's development director, notes that many customers of the company from the retail sector connected chat bots, which helped close about half of all calls and significantly reduce the costs of the contact center.

Alexey Ankudinov, the company's Set Sales Director, CSI cited an example of a similar solution for employees. So, the company's chat bot Set Galya allowed cashiers to remotely obtain permission for privileged operations. Chatbot saves 60 hours a month in one store and speeds up service.

"Ribbon" in 2020 expanded the project and took Galya to work in another 9 stores. Now the circulation of this decision is being made, "explained Alexei Ankudinov.

QR Technology Diffusion

Retailers are trying to maximize the payment opportunities at the cash desk for the buyer, in particular, due to QR codes. So far, this is not a massive story, but it will develop, since retailers at the expense of QR can save on acquiring, and customers like contactless payments.

QR technologies will be distributed in all areas: as an alternative payment method, as a customer ID under the loyalty program, as a way to receive tips. In Moscow, QR technologies are already being actively used, and in the regions this trend is only gaining momentum, "said Olga Kukushkina, commercial director of Evotor.

Mass adoption of self-service technologies

The introduction of self-service technologies has become massive. Market participants see this by the number of requests from retailers and by the pace of promotion of their own products.

Today, it is no longer necessary to convince retailers that this is effective - we can say that this has become an industry standard, retailers are moving from pilot projects to print runs. Assess the functionality and cost of equipment, convenience of software. If we talk specifically about us, I would estimate the growth of this direction from 20% per year, while implementation projects take place not only in product chains - Decathlon last year launched self-service cash desks first in the fashion segment. Thanks to the use of RFID tags, the buyer makes a purchase very quickly and without the need to scan the goods, "says Alexei Ankudinov, director of sales of Set products at CSI.

The commercial director of Evotor Olga Kukushkina also predicts the mass introduction of self-service cash desks. According to her, a rapid decrease in the cost of these devices will allow them to be used even by small outlets. In 2021, cash desks without a cashier will be introduced, for example, in coffee shops and self-service outlets in offices.

Further Retail Care in Online and Mobile Applications

Retail, like foodtech, is increasingly going online and into mobile applications, increasing the speed of releases. If earlier for some players the Internet was the second platform compared to offline points, now it has become the main one.

This trend is clearly for a long time - people get used to distancing and online shopping, "says Alexey Florinsky, CEO of SimbirSoft.

Novardis CEO Alexander Niznik recalls that recently the purchase of food on the Internet was exotic, and only a small percentage of buyers used this channel. Today, such an opportunity has become commonplace.

Buying products online is our reality. Many retailers have already gained the confidence of customers by timely and high-quality delivery, as well as by the Click & collect service, when you can order products in one click and pick up what you need already in the hypermarket. For retailers, this is an increase in the average check, and for customers - convenience and time saving, "says Alexander Niznik.

Personalized Marketing

The retailer's loyalty system in a classic form - when for all customers the same "price without a discount" and "price with a discount" - is easy to copy. Today, retailers are more interested in offering the customer exactly what motivates him to come to a specific store: you need to understand what he loves, what is relevant for him right now - and offer a discount.

Today, all the largest retailers have taken steps in this direction: for example, Lenta in its mobile application offers to choose their favorite categories of goods, 5% cashback is awarded for their purchase with points. Personal discounts, personal coupons coming to the e-mail are a serious trend, "said Alexei Ankudinov, director of sales of Set products at CSI.

A similar opinion is shared by Oksana Kolchina, Executive Director of ATOL. According to her, solutions focused on the needs of the buyer will be popular.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected changing consumer scenarios and accelerated the penetration of technology into all areas of our lives. All this led to the fact that the focus of the business was the end client. Now it is his desires and his behavior that are in our focus. And the technologies that retail has introduced during this time, as well as the big data that we received thanks to this, will allow us to understand the client, improve all aspects of working with him and offer exactly what he needs, "says the ATOL expert.

Relevance of solutions for interaction with employees

Retailers are actively using modern solutions to automate HR processes. Such systems, created including using artificial intelligence technologies, are able, for example, to automate routine operations with mass recruitment of personnel, to reduce the time for working out resumes hundreds of times, as well as analyze why employees leave the company. Artificial intelligence itself conducts initial interviews, filters the resume, which reduces the time and cost of mass hiring.

So, the employees of the Unified Hiring Center "Lenta" solved the problem of optimizing the mass selection of personnel just with the help of AI: Sever.AI from TalentTech was connected to the nickname of the candidates, who simultaneously contacted the candidates on more than 100 lines. This increased the percentage of calls from 63% to 78% compared to recruiters, and in 4 months Lenta processed more than 8,000 candidates, "says Elsa Egorova, CEO of the HCM platform of the HRtech solutions company TalentTech.

In addition to recruitment issues, the issue of comfortable adaptation of employees remains relevant. For example, in Duck-bill ONLINE hypermarket for adaptation of beginners TalentTech use the mobile application ". Adaptation with gamification. " New employees go through the adaptation track and receive points, and managers set goals for a probationary period and track their implementation. HR and line managers see the progress of each employee, analyze his successes and weaknesses, and receive feedback. As a result, staff outflows during probationary periods are reduced.

In addition, retail, like other industries, pays attention to Talent Analytics in order to better know their employees and maintain their effectiveness even in the face of constant changes.

This is perhaps the main reason why 72% of organizations surveyed by LinkedIn are going to introduce People Analytics in the next five years - an analysis of employees according to various parameters for compiling training programs and improving professional skills, "Elsa Egorova explains.

Interest in modeling and planning systems

The increase in the speed of change has fueled the interest of retailers in modeling and planning systems, digital twins. This task was relevant for large federal companies with a dense chain of stores, darkstores and RCs.

The purpose of introducing such technologies is to satisfy the customer's demand, calculate the load on logistics infrastructure facilities and properly plan the location of new logistics facilities, "explains Gennady Tarantasov, commercial director of KORUS Consulting Group of Companies. - Interest in such a class of solutions remains, especially against the background of problems in supply chains at the global level, which we are witnessing right now. I think today is the very time of optimization and strategically accurate development - without such systems this will simply be impossible.

Other trends

In 2021, you should expect further penetration of RPA technologies into retail in the format of intelligent automation, combining the capabilities of Process Mining and AI, which are already offered by leading RPA platforms.

In terms of retail business processes, RPA allows you to get a noticeable economic effect in such routine and labor areas as personnel administration, processing of primary accounting documents, working with user accounts in the IT system environment, etc. In 2021, robots should also be expected to penetrate other departments and divisions, including customer experience, "said Sergey Osipov, vice president of GMCS.

Now no system can cover all the needs of the retailer's IT landscape, so platform openness and the ability to quickly integrate through an open API are very important

Set Retail in this regard has something to be proud of - the system has an open API: you can implement integration with ERP, processes and external loyalty systems without the involvement of third-party specialists, on finished documentation. We are preparing to open an API for labeling, "says Alexey Ankudinov, a representative of CSI.

Natalya Leshchinets, deputy technical director of Docrobott, believes that at present the ability of companies to adapt to changes on the go is decisive, so the demand for quick configurable solutions is growing. Another trend, she said, is associated with simplifying the functionality of systems and a separate interface for each group of users.

According to Tatyana Yezhova, head of Retail at Reksoft remains a trend towards creating ecosystems. At the same time, the company expects new players to enter this market. Also in the trend is the optimization of logistics, delivery time and related projects. Automation of stores of large retailers will continue, including warehouse management, shelf occupancy control, and procurement automation.

These are far from new tasks, but given the current state, such projects will not lose relevance, "says Tatyana Yezhova.

In addition, in her opinion, in-store projects will be developed: expanding the functions of retailers selling applications for offline, including such interesting services as biometric payment, navigating the store, for example, using iBeacon, game elements for customers using AR/VR, personalized applications and face recognition. Must have for many retailers - AI and BigData projects. Despite some overestimation, the number of such projects is unlikely to decrease, the Reksoft expert believes.

Olga Kukushkina, commercial director of Evotor, believes that marking will remain one of the main trends for the retail market. Non-network retail is beginning to actively introduce commodity accounting due to new requirements for the content of checks, and this is the first step to automating all business processes.

Only when working with goods, it becomes possible to introduce loyalty programs, work with the client base, etc., she explains.

The expert "Evotor" recalls that actively work with the markets of the beginning of the Federal Tax Service. According to Olga Kukushkina, this will not only whitewash this segment of the business and improve the quality of goods sold, but also train sellers to use technologies such as acquiring and paying according to the QR code. And market buyers will get more convenient payment tools.

Another trend that is talked about in Evotor is associated with experiments of large retail with biometrics. In particular, the company expects that voice recognition technologies will help control and improve the quality of service.

Alexander Dyachkov, CEO of AySiEl Retail Services, ranks one of the main trends as an increasing transition to cashless settlement.

The number of customers with the card has always grown steadily, but the pandemic and the development of NFC technology have catalyzed this process. Most retailers cease to consider the need to buy self-service cash desks with cash receipt, everyone wants no profit. This is easier and cheaper, "the expert notes.

Maxim Lyalin, senior sales manager at Linxdatacenter, says that in the face of a sharp increase in the load on the company's IT infrastructure on the one hand and problems with the production of components on the global market on the other, companies began to develop competencies in the clouds at an accelerated pace. Unlike the time of delivery of a new server or components to it, which can take from a week to several months, the expansion of the cloud for a new project is a matter of one working day.

In the rapidly changing circumstances of 2020, this feature of cloud technology in some companies played a key role. Ready-made cloud services are also gaining popularity, the use of which does not require a large number of experienced IT specialists and developers within the company. It is enough to sign a contract with a global cloud provider and start using the ready-made service in its cloud. Convenient, fast, transparent, "he said.

See also

• IT in retail 2021. Overview of TAdviser.
• IT in retail 2019. TAdviser Overview
• Retail Information Technology: 390 IT Product and Service Providers (Market Map)
• IT in Trade and Logistics 2017. TAdviser Overview
• E-Commerce
• Information security in e-commerce
• Retail (global market)
• Retail (Russian market)