I have written a bit about how the smartphone is a game changer in retail, impacting the way consumers shop in so many new and exciting ways.  Mobile brings many benefits to the shopper including the ability to do product research in the aisle of the store, compare prices in real-time, and connect to social media to garner peer recommendations.  We are now seeing the advent of other in-store services like product navigation (where is the soap?) that will save shoppers time and improve their overall experience.  Retailers are seeing the benefits of bringing the online world into the physical store shopping experience.

However, the mobile device revolution doesn't just impact the consumer.  We are starting to see a trend where the major retail chains are arming their employees and store managers with the very same technology that the consumer is using.  There have been several high profile announcements where these retailers are engaging their store associates with mobile technology in order to dramatically change the way they do business.

In probably the largest announced roll-out, Lowe's plans to deploy 42,000 iOS based devices in their 1,700+ stores.  The initial application for these devices is to allow store employees the ability to access the lowes.com site, check product inventory, and access "how-to" videos.  At some point these devices will also be capable of conducting POS transactions so associates can close a deal in the aisle of the store.  Home Depot made a similar announcement earlier in the year where they plan to spend $60 million on getting mobile devices into the hands of theirs store associates.  In this case, they selected more hardened devices from Motorola as their device of choice.  In both cases, these retailers decided it was time to get more online data in the hands of their sales people in order to bring information closer to the customer.

In the apparel industry, Nordstrom announced that they were bringing 5,000 iOS devices into their stores to be used as mobile point of sale terminals.  Nordstrom, a longtime leader in customer service, intends to speed up the check-out experience and once again provide more information to customers through their trusted sales associates.  

Looking deeper into what mobile POS brings, there is also the potential for it to free up more selling real estate while dramatically reducing infrastructure costs for the store.  Retailers measure their performance on "sales per square foot" and in most large department stores, precious real estate is taken up by the cash wrap.  By enabling mobile POS, Nordstrom and other retailers may be able to do away entirely with their check out aisle.  Imagine the cost savings if the retailer didn't have to pay for these expensive check out stands (tens of thousands of dollars each, 5-10 per store, hundreds of stores...) and that area could be used to house more items for sale.  Decreasing store costs while increasing sales per square foot is enabled by implementing in-store mobile technology.

Today the promise of better customer engagement, easier check out, decreased store costs, and increasing revenues are major drivers for these mobile device roll-outs.  However, there are many details that will need to get sorted out before the true value of these programs can be realized:  

• How do you prevent theft if there is no formal check-out location?  
• Where do the electronic tags get removed and where do items get bagged? 
• What about cash transactions?  
• Is there enough WiFi coverage to ensure constant connectivity? 

I am sure there will be many more logistical issues that will need to be resolved, but the upside is so large that I expect mobile technology in the hands of every store employee to become main stream in the next few years.  Retailers will adapt traditional processes, like customer check out, because the payback is so huge.

Wireless LAN technology (aka WiFi) has had a tremendous run over the last decade.  What started out as a consumer technology, quickly invaded the enterprise and began popping up as the network access method of choice by users in universities, healthcare, and traditional corporate environments.  Interestingly enough, retail was one of the first vertical markets where WLAN had its first success.  These deployments were not nearly as glamorous as what we see today in a leading university because they were mostly used as part of a back office function - inventory tracking.

Now that WiFi has become mainstream, we are starting to see new applications of the technology that promise to make our ability to connect, at any time, that much easier.  Deloitte wrote their predictions for 2011 and one that I agree whole heartedly with is: 

"Deloitte predicts that in 2011, 25 percent of North American big box and anchor tenant retailers will begin offering free in-store Wi-Fi access to shoppers. In 2012, the proportion should continue to rise in North America and start to spread around the world"

Once again we will see retail take a leadership role in a new application of WiFi, this time it will be as an "amenity" feature.  Retailers understand that smartphones and online commerce are playing a bigger and bigger role in the in-store shopping experience and that this new trend ultimately makes purchasing easier.  At first most retailers feared that shoppers would use this new technology to price shop their products, but most have quickly realized that as long as their prices are somewhat close, the convenience, personal touch, and instant gratification that only they can offer will ultimately lead to more sales.  Again, from Deloitte:

"In-store Wi-Fi presents retailers with a number of minor challenges. Retailers will probably need to build more and better apps to enhance the in-store experience. They may also need to upgrade their Wi-Fi equipment and network connectivity to support additional connections. However, based on experiences from some early in-store deployments, the costs to address these challenges are not material to most large retailers."

The convergence of smartphones, free high-speed internet, and the "daily deal" phenomenon is fundamentally changing the buying experience.  For retailers there is an immediate need to embrace this new technology and provide an environment that enables the shopper every step along their buying process.  The retailers who get this - which already includes leaders like Nordstrom, Staples, and The Home Depot who have free WiFi access in their stores - will have a competitive advantage as the demand for online access while in the store continues to grow.

I have been reading a lot about "big data" these last few days and think that there is a great opportunity to provide business intelligence from the mounds of data that exist in the network access layer of many large organizations.  At my last company we developed a network management system for WLANs.  Wireless networking is quite different than the traditional ethernet network so it made sense to build a new class of tool that was able to report on the different aspects of wireless versus wired networks.  However, like its wired NMS brethren, this wireless data is stuck within the IT department - where it provides a tremendous amount of value to the wireless network engineer - but the potential could be unlocked to provide even more interesting information to other workers.  

Let me give an example, imagine if you were managing a store.  One of your responsibilities is to ensure accurate inventory levels and corporate has outfitted your store with bar code scanners and the necessary inventory tracking software.  You have a process where your employees take the scanners and check inventory at some periodic point in time.  However, one day after the shift, one of your employees notices that only 10 of the 15 bar code scanners returned...where did the other 5 end up?  Well wouldn't it be nice if you had the information about where that device was last located?  Good news was that it was connected to the wireless store network so the wireless network management system could tell you where it was last seen.  The data from the wireless NMS could be extended to this type of business user - the store manager - to create information about their bar code scanners.  In this case where they are located.

There is certainly a lot of excitement around turning large data sets into meaningful information.  I think there is a great opportunity to apply this thinking to traditional enterprise situations as well.  Systems that have traditionally housed this data for one specific use can easily be repurposed for entirely new and never thought about circumstances.  Now all we have to worry about are things like security, scalability, etc. - which, of course, are never so easy.  

How would you imagine network data affecting business decisions your organization makes?