Cisco will be featured in two Big Idea sessions at this year’s NRF conference starting tomorrow, and I’m happy to introduce guest blogger Lisa Fretwell, who will be leading one of these two seminars. Lisa is the Managing Director of Retail at Cisco Consulting Services, specializing in the Internet of Everything and analytics, and how these new capabilities can transform and differentiate retail and consumer product businesses:

In today’s digital era, stores are clearly challenged in terms of sales and profitable growth. Every retailer is faced with needing to change and innovate their store to deliver results.

Overall, the majority of stores across all categories are demonstrating flat or declining like for like, exacerbated by price deflation. Cisco’s recently concluded annual survey on shopper behavior of 10,000 shoppers highlights the ongoing shift away from the store to online. Twenty percent of consumers now make more than 50% of their purchases online, and this number is expected to continue to grow.

However, when you dig down into the data, you may be surprised by some of the changes. As just one example, we asked shoppers which categories they had significantly moved from store to online. We learned that 41% of the consumers surveyed have somewhat or significantly increased their online purchases of apparel in the last two years – clothing, shoes, and accessories. Traditionally, these products are the life blood of why shoppers go to a store – to touch, feel, try on.

So is it all doom and gloom for shops? No, not if you’re up for innovation and change. There are still significant reasons for shoppers to visit stores. Our research highlights some key insights that retailers must leverage to drive healthy results and make the store experience hyper-relevant.

Our experience from retail engagements suggests the answer lies in two areas: being able to deliver dynamic experiences, and to improve ways of working. From instant response to customer needs to improved process digitization, we are seeing that retailers are increasingly relying on a combination of sensors, analytics, automation, cloud, and edge computing.

If we apply this model to a $20 billion turnover retailer with 900 stores, Cisco estimates that there is $312 million of incremental benefit to be had: $170 million from digitizing ways of working: staffing optimization, store routine digitization, and colleague collaboration; plus $142 million from improved customer conversion through insight, digital offers and loyalty, service, and cross-channel selling. We believe this approach offers the next much-needed step change in store economics.

To learn more, please join us at NRF on Sunday for Cisco’s Big Idea sessions:

• The first, at 10:15 am in Room 4 of the Expo Hall, covers more on our annual survey results. It is led by Cisco Vice President Joe Bradley (replacing Anabelle Pinto due to a family emergency).
• Then, at 2:00 pm in Room 4, Cisco’s Shaun Kirby and I will discuss how retailers are taking advantage of the “Internet of Everything: New Horizons in Retail.”

We look forward to seeing you there!

Tags: #nrf15, analytics, automation, Big Idea, Cisco, cloud, customer experience, Dianne Lamendola, digitization, edge computing, NRF, retail, sensors, shopper, shops, survey

Hello, retailers everywhere! My name is Dianne Lamendola, and I am a senior retail practice advisor here at Cisco. My role is to work closely with store operators and merchants to help understand your business and how technology can help you reach critical goals.

I hope you have been following our three-part series of one-hour webcasts that Cisco has been hosting this year on retail analytics. In the store, online, and across data sources, retailers have been increasingly focused on how to gather and analyze the metrics that help provide insights to run a tighter operation and provide a more exciting experience for your shoppers.

On Oct. 22, we’ll wrap up this series with a session on “Technology that Gets Down to Business: Develop Your Action Plan for Retail Analytics Success.” Held at 10:00-11:00 am PT/1:00-2:00 pm ET, this candid discussion lets you learn how to:

• Implement innovative retail analytics technologies
• Drive added value from traditional and new data sources
• Deploy mobility, wireless, video cameras, sensors, and services to jumpstart your action plan

Register today! By registering, you will also earn a free introductory analytics enablement meeting and additional tools to help you think more about your program.

While it’s not necessary to attend the previous sessions to join us, please feel free to review the recordings of our prior events:

1. Part I: Understanding the Basics of Setting Up Your In-Store Analytics Program – Recording
2. Part II: Case Studies of Analytics Programs in Real-World Stores – Recording

We welcome all retailers, including IT staffers, who want to know more about how analytics fit into and enhance your store environment.

I’ll see you there!

Tags: analytics, Cisco, data, Dianne Lamendola, innovation, metrics, retail, retailer, sensors, services, shopper, technologies, technology, video, wireless

In the past few weeks, I’ve received two replacement credit cards. And, no, this does not indicate I’ve done too much shopping! It means that hackers are continuing to target retailers and the bank decided I needed to be protected by new credit card numbers.

I’m Carol Ferrara-Zarb, and as the leader of Cisco’s Security Solutions team, I’m joining the Cisco Retail blog today to talk to you about security and compliance in the store. While consumers certainly worry about security, the concerns of retailers are magnified because you are among the highest-profile targets right now for professional hacker attacks. Store owners and operators are just about lying awake at night wondering who is going to be next.

At the same time, change is continuing on the security front, particularly in the area of PCI compliance. At the end of this calendar year, the new 3.0 version of the PCI DSS mandate will come into force. Are you ready for the new requirements?

If you’re a Cisco customer, you very well may be. Join us on July 23 for a free, one-hour webcast called, “Straight Talk about Reducing Complexity and Maintaining Compliance in Retail.” Cisco Security Architect Christian Janoff, who sits on the PCI Security Standards Council Board of Advisors, and Aaron Reynolds, PCI Managing Principal for Cisco partner Verizon, will lead a candid discussion on retail security. The session covers:

• The changes in the PCI DSS 3.0 mandate and their impact on your retail business
• How to satisfy three standards—PCI, SOX, and HIPAA—by configuring one control
• Implementing the latest, simplified strategies for PCI scope reduction, and how they can be superior to traditional methods for many retailers

You’ll come away with an overview of today’s threat landscape, and we’ll put it all into perspective to support your continued pursuit of compliance and retail success. Registrants will also receive the Simplifying Compliance Answer Kit, a set of documents and tools to help you understand compliance better.

The webcast takes place on July 23 at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET. Please register today! Be sure to bring your questions to take part in the discussion.

We’ll see you there!

Tags: Carol Ferrara-Zarb, compliance, credit card, customer, data, HIPAA, information, pci, retail, security, shopper, sox, standard, threat, webcast

One of my passions is around PCI compliance. I know that sounds oxymoronic. How can someone actually be passionate about something as dry as compliance? Well, for the sake of argument, I prefer delusional rationalization. I think of myself as Batman! I don’t have his intelligence, money, car, or cape (well, I do have the cape, but that is another story), but I DO want to fight injustice where I can. I do think that there are bad guys out there trying to steal my family’s hard earned money. PCI compliance is the leading method for securing the world’s payment systems. The bad guys are real, security is getting harder, and I want to fight on the side of good.

The problem with fighting crime with compliance is that it can be so complex. The general strategy to minimize the complexity of PCI compliance is to use segmentation. Segmentation typically involves putting credit card applications and devices onto its own network, and use traditional firewalls to secure the perimeter. Although effective, this method brings about its own headaches around management. Firewall rulesets can become tedious and complex. Readdressing an entire enterprise with the sole driver of compliance is Herculean. Over time, if not properly managed and sustained, this method, can lead to bloat, misconfiguration, or worse, a breach.

Enter Cisco TrustSec to the rescue. Cisco TrustSec allows companies to dramatically simplify the management of PCI compliance by eliminating the need to readdress the network. It can greatly reduce firewall rulesets. It profiles PCI devices in human terms, decouples IP addressing, making it easier for administrators to ensure that the policy is enforced. This is where we see the real strength of Cisco. By using the network in combination with firewalls and the Cisco Identity Services Engine, you start simplifying real-world business problems like compliance.

We were so excited by this technology to reduce PCI scope and simplify management that we invited Verizon assessors into our laboratories. Verizon’s assessment of Cisco TrustSec and PCI Scope Reduction is available at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns170/ns896/ns1051/trustsec_pci_validation.pdf

In a crime-ridden world as bad as Gotham, it is nice to see the good guys start to get some of the toys as cool as Batman’s.

Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoyed my last blog on some of the most popular use cases for analytics in the store.

I hope you are also aware of an exciting three-part series of one-hour free webcasts that Cisco is currently doing on analytics. We don’t usually go down so far into a single topic at these quarterly retail events. However, store analytics is so new and can be complex enough that we are digging into it to help you understand what you need to set up programs to drive your sales.

In Part 1 of the series, we showed how data can help improve differentiation and competitive advantage: By identifying the right analytics and metrics, you can generate insights and innovate for retail success. (You can listen to the recording here.)

For Part 2 on June 25, being held at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET, we’ll discuss how you can move toward a truly data-driven model, where your insights from data help to solve specific business challenges. Several Cisco partners will join us to talk about solutions they’ve implemented that are already helping retailers improve their business out in the real world. Be sure to bring your questions!

Register today to talk about how to:

• Determine what works best in-store
• Optimize staffing and workforce efficiency
• Increase marketing and campaign effectiveness
• Create and execute an Analytics 3.0 strategy

Plus, you’ll hear from Cisco experts who will discuss how to increase your opportunities to profit along the entire shopper journey. Whether you manage store operations, staffing, layout, assortments, a category, an entire brand, or IT, please join me for this series of webcasts to uncover immediate benefits for your retail business.

See you there!