Ebook how to turn 9 retail it challenges into 9 business opportunities

1. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

2. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 2·
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
According to a recent market study on
the state of the retail sector that we have
released at Openbravo, almost 82% of
today’s retailers were planning to increase
their IT budgets this year which clearly
shows a trend change that would continue
in the coming years. Top priorities in
retailers’ IT spending are focused on
cross-channel, cloud and mobile
capabilities, and 79% of retailers will
invest specifically in their store systems,
where the number of retailers using
mobile POS is expected to triple in 2015.
This shows a positive market outlook
for vendors of innovative solutions and
systems targeting retail.
What the same study confirms as well is
that despite the rapid growth of online
retail, physical stores will continue to
be the main driver of total retail sales
for several more years to come.This
is especially true in emerging markets
due to different infrastructure, legal and
consumer behavior reasons. Over the
coming years, 89% of total retail sales in
developed countries like the USA, and a
whopping 95% on average in emerging
markets like Mexico or India will still be
realized in physical stores. It is clear then
that physical stores will continue to play a
key role in the retail space.
Retail dynamics are changing though and
that needs to be taken into account by
retailers themselves in their strategies, as
well as by solution vendors like Openbravo
to continue to support retailers for
enhanced competitiveness.
Back in 2010 we made the strategic
decision to develop a new point of sale
solution, fully web and mobile.
At Openbravo we were well positioned
to do so since today’s mobile point of
sale is an evolution of our tremendously
successful previous point of sale solution,
the Openbravo Java POS that was
downloaded close to 1 million times! Our
entirely new point of sale was launched in
2012 embedded in the new Openbravo for
Retail solution. Today we can still proudly
say that it is a differential product in the
market and this has allowed us to achieve
great results especially in emerging
markets where open source affordability
plays a key role.

3. · 3 ·

4. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 4·
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
Mobility has rapidly become one of the
highest priorities for forward-thinking
companies in recent years and it is deeply
transforming the way they do business.
Employees, suppliers and customers are
benefitting from mobile technologies with
better access to the best information
anytime, anywhere.The explosion of the
use of tablets and smartphones has only
accelerated this process.
Retailers are not an exception and
mobility has been pointed out as one
of the most important IT investment
decisions. Customer Service, Store
Operations or Supply Chain are the areas
which have benefitted most by enabling
retailers to better connect with customers,
manage stores and collaborate with the
supply chain more efficiently.
In the stores, mobile POS has penetrated
deeply into the critical realms of the
shopping experience and customer
satisfaction. More empowered employees
armed with mobile solutions count now
with better tools and information on hand
to provide a better shopping experience
on the shop floor.
It is of no surprise then to see that the
adoption of mobile POS has tripled
according to a recent Openbravo study.
Hardgoods and softgoods specialty
retailers are the most interested, to whom
an interactive assisted sale everywhere in
the store makes all the difference.
EMBRACING
MOBILITY

5. · 5 ·
Processes such as inventory management
are also benefit highly from mobility.
More accurate inventory counts or goods
movements can be executed from a
mobile device and in real time thus
helping to significantly improve store
operations and the whole supply chain
when they are executed in the stores or in
central warehouses or supplier facilities.
Openbravo provides retailers with a mobile-ready platform that allows them to easily extend their business processes to any mobile
devices and touch screens. Thanks to the Openbravo Core Mobile Infrastructure, retailers can build and deploy mobile applications
for secure access to business processes, anytime, anywhere, and on any device thanks to the use of HTML5 and responsive design
technologies. It leverages the Openbravo web based architecture so all mobile solutions are also web based thus helping to
dramatically simplify the way mobile solutions must be deployed and maintained. And by storing transactions processed during
connection outage and sending them transparently to the back-office once connectivity returns, support is provided for uninterrupted
operations.
The Openbravo Web POS is a full web and mobile POS solution that provides full transactional support from any device, unusual in
other solutions where the mobile POS supports only a limited functionality.Thanks to it being a full web POS the way it is deployed
is dramatically simplified since only a browser is required, thus providing independence from the mobile device so the retailer can
select the device of its choice. Terminals can be rapidly added and removed, therefore helping to adapt more effectively to stationary
situations or enabling new stores to be opened much faster.
An additional mobile functionality for purchasing and warehouse operations is also available, including management of goods
movements, picking lists and inventory counts, that can be easily extended to adapt to customer requirements.

6. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 6·
LEVERAGING
THE CLOUD
The cloud is a disruptive technology for all businesses in all industries, which is
transforming how companies invest and manage their IT assets.This is especially
relevant for retailers who need to embrace technology that will allow them to react
faster and be more flexible to succeed in today’s super-empowered consumer age. 68%
of retail executives plan to adopt cloud technologies into their business strategies and
operations*.
The financial advantages of the cloud, primarily the ability to move capital to operating
expenses, may initially drive cloud adoption for many retailers, but there are more
benefits and they are commonly related to IT efficiency, IT agility and business
innovation.
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics

7. · 7 ·
Openbravo provides retailers with a cloud-
ready platform so they can benefit from a
higher IT agility and deployment simplicity.
The Openbravo native web architecture is
of great benefit, allowing to transparently
deploy the system under different
scenarios.
The Openbravo Commerce Platform can
also be deployed as an On Demand service
using the Amazon AWS infrastructure
and managed by Openbravo directly. In
comparison with traditional SaaS models,
Openbravo On Demand does not only
provide a managed infrastructure but
it also gives retailers the possibility to
fully adapt their system, typical of an On
Premise deployment, so it combines the
advantages of both worlds.
Thecloud provides IT
departments with the ability
to provision and deliver
solutions faster which is very
attractive to retailers facing
common seasonal situations
that require constant capacity
adjustments. Faster time
to market is also achieved
making, for example,
geographic expansion easier,
without the expense of
developing traditional IT
infrastructure.
The cloud provides more
attractive pricing models
compared with traditional
offerings. Cost efficiency is also
improved since cloud adoption
allows to reduce idle time for
IT assets.
The cloud offers unique
opportunities for integration
given that the information is
more easily accessible from
other solutions and in a highly
secure way.
in combination with
mobile, social, and analytics
technologies, cloud platforms
will continue to add agility,
efficiency, and cost savings to
projects while enabling options
that are not otherwise viable.
HIGHER
BUSINESS
AGILITY:
LOWER
COST:
BETTER
INTEGRATION
CAPABILITIES:
LEVERAGE, OTHER
TECHNOLOGIES:

8. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 8·
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
PROGRESSING IN
CROSSCHANNEL
Retailers no longer need evidence that cross-channel capabilities are critical factors
for success today and they will be even more important in the future.This interest is
fully confirmed by several studies that reveal that multi-channel consumers are more
profitable than consumers using just one channel.
However, this does not mean that all retailers are ready for it and in fact most, if not all
retailers have a long way to go to become true champions in this field.
Several aspects have been pointed out as main reasons behind this lower cross-channel
adoption.
Poor Merchandise Management Agility and Supply Chain Management Efficiency
Merchandise Management Agility and Supply Chain Management Efficiency are
considered two of the most important building blocks for any successful cross-channel
strategy. However, a lot of retailers are still using old systems, which do not provide
the required capabilities, for example when managing a huge number of products,
assortments, or promotions across all channels.
Lack of Business Analytics
For any successful cross-channel strategy, retailers need actionable customer
intelligence that allows them to react quickly to customer behavior changes and
evaluate the efficiency of any decision. 71% of retailers think that cross channel
initiatives are still low due to the lack of proper actionable analytics

9. · 9 ·
Lack of a Single Platform.
A single platform would facilitate seamless cross-channel scenarios but the reality is
that for the moment, retailers´ transaction platform will be a hybrid of multiple channel
specific platforms. It is the natural result if you take into account how they made their
large prior IT investments. An interesting aspect to consider is whether in the future
the primary transaction system will be POS or E-commerce. At the moment, only big
retailers can afford to progress in this field and we are starting to hear about new
Order Management Systems that are trying to orchestrate the fulfillment process across
different channels.
The Openbravo Commerce Platform allows retailers to progress solidly in their cross-
channel strategies.
Higher merchandise management agility is provided with the capacity of dealing
with a huge number of products and assortments in an effective way, with features
like product characteristics, variants and multilevel product catalogs.This agility is
also achieved by the availability of a powerful price and promotions engine for a
faster development and execution of pricing strategies. An unlimited number of price
list versions and a strong discounts and promotion engine including scaled prices,
discretionary or automatic discounts, buy one get 2 promotions, packs, amount or
percentage discounts at line or ticket level are some of the existing features.
Seamless supply chain operations are supported with a comprehensive procurement,
warehouse and inventory management functionality. Retailers can achieve an accurate
control of the whole procurement process with requisitions, purchase orders and
goods receipts, get visibility in real time about stock in all locations with alerts for
replenishment and real time control of order status and warehouse movements for an
accurate planning of picking, packing and shipping activities.
Advanced analytics are provided by Openbravo Retail Analytics, a powerful embedded
analytics engine with visual and role-tailored decision-making tools that communicate
key performance indicators in simple terms and allow to drill down when immediate
action is required. And it requires minimal IT overheads since in most common
scenarios it can be simply deployed in the same Openbravo instance.
The online channel can also be efficiently integrated by means of existing connectors
with platforms like Magento that finally allow retailers to integrate all their channels
and leverage the Openbravo flexible architecture to build a true OMS that orchestrates
processes across all channels.

10. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 10·
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
LEVERAGING
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGES
In today’s hyper-competitive landscape retailers need to develop competitive
advantages. Under these circumstances, retailers are struggling to make the most of
their systems, mainly due to the existence of a gap between key business requirements
and systems capabilities. That gap can be particularly wide with traditional solutions,
particularly as a firm’s business processes change as the organization itself grows and
changes.
So retailers are seeking modern systems that allow them to support their competitive
advantages in a sustainable manner. Very specific business requirements such as
loyalty programs, custom pricing and special inventory replenishment procedures are
just some examples that can make all the difference and require the system to be
adapted. In fact it is known that a lot of retailers have very customized legacy systems
and they consider it impossible to move to a new system due to the complexity
it represents. These retailers need solutions that can be easily adapted to their
requirements and not the other way around..

11. · 11 ·
BEING AGILE
AND STAYING
INNOVATIVE
Today’s dynamic markets are very demanding and agility for responsiveness is becoming a must. Unforseen market and business
events, changes in existing processes or the introduction of new products are some examples that require a quick reaction and will
very often have an impact on the existing systems. Therefore retailers require business management systems that are easy to evolve
and maintain. They should provide a straightforward process to upgrade the system to newer versions without any painful migration
process thus allowing to continuously adopt new innovations while protecting any existing specific developments.
Openbravo is a fully modular platform. Modularity changes the way in which Openbravo can be adapted to user needs. Instead of
customizing the code to match user requirements, it is possible to externally –from an independent module- extend functionality
and to configure it, providing higher flexibility and greatly simplifying the adaptation of the system to user needs. And most
importantly, this guarantees the isolation and protection of any existing customization so the system can be updated frequently and
smoothly.
Openbravo modular architecture also enables a more efficient development process, encourages sharing and reuse of new
functionality, and reduces complexity through modules that can add new functionality and modify/extend behavior of other modules
so it greatly helps to reduce time-to-market when introducing new changes.

12. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 12·
BEING
PREPARED
FOR GROWTH
Successful retailers do not only care for their situation today but they also constantly
seek growth opportunities. Introduction of new products, new promotions, new stores
or international operations are just some of the business events that retailers will face
along the way. So they need to adopt solutions that effectively support their future
growth, without impacting their whole business performance.
Openbravo provides retailers with a future-proof platform ready to adapt to future needs and growth. It features a highly
scalable arquitecture that has been designed for high performance and heavy load environments (users and data) and
allows to adapt to any stage of growth thus increasing IT responsiveness to business objectives.
Openbravo’s web architecture enables real-time operation and simplifies the system landscape, making it easier to deploy
and maintain thus decreasing its operation costs.
Retailers seeking growth internationally can also benefit from the Openbravo Commerce Platform capabilities, thanks to
the support it provides to international operations with multi-language, multi-currency or multi-accounting features.
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics

13. · 13 ·
ENSURING
SECURE
OPERATIONS
Security is another big concern for retailers. Secured system access but most
importantly accurate operational control and audit to avoid any fraudulent activity in
particular at the point of sale or in online transactions is a must for retailers today.
The Openbravo Commerce Platform provides a strong and flexible security model that allows retailers to be in control of
their operations.
Secure HTTPS access and LDAP authentication as well as a role based system and auditing capabilities are some of the
available features. At the POS the system allows to easily configure manager approvals for most typical actions, which
improves operational efficiency and help to minimize fraudulent activities.efficiency while helping to minimize fraudulent
activities.

14. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 14·
LEVERAGING
PRIOR IT
INVESTMENTS
One of the biggest concerns when adopting a new solution is the capacity to
continue using existing systems in other areas that allow the leveraging of prior
investments. More complex supply chains also demand the capacity to easily integrate
with customers and suppliers´ systems. And with a growing number of new retail
technologies it is mandatory that the adopted platforms provide proper tools that
allow retailers to leverage them (new payment methods, digital signage, social media
integration, location based marketing…).
Openbravo provides retailers with a highly interoperable platform that helps retailers to leverage their prior IT investments
while ensuring that new and future technologies will be easily integrated.
The Openbravo Commerce Platform provides an out-of-the-box web services layer (JSON/XML CRUD REST web services),
which simplifies the way other solutions can be integrated. Standard web services can be easily extended to adapt to any
integration requirement. Ad-hoc web services for specific entities (SOAP) can be also developed.
Retailers can benefit from existing connectors with solutions like Magento, SugarCRM or ZohoReports.
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics

15. · 15 ·
IMPROVING
CUSTOMER
SERVICE AND
BOOSTING STAFF
PRODUCTIVITY
With consumers at the center of any retailer strategy a superb service becomes a critical
goal.To achieve that it is imperative to count with highly motivated and empowered
employees. Employees armed with better tools and information that help to provide
customers the expected shopping experience.
In addition, given that retail has one of the highest turnover rates and faces frequent
stationary situations that require constant adaptation to the available staff capacity,
retailers and especially brick-and-mortar retailers need to ensure staff productivity in a
shorter time, so adopted tools must enable staff to start working with minimum training.
The Openbravo Commerce Platform provides a highly productive web interface
for higher staff productivity and people`s collaboration.
The Openbravo POS allows the processing of new sales in minutes, including a
training mode that allows people to get trained rapidly. Sales associates armed
with mobile devices can provide an interactive assisted sale everywhere in the
store to improve customer service and increase cross-selling and up-selling
opportunities. A fully embedded analytics engine helps store managers to take
more informed decisions and get better insights into the store performance

16. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 16·
CHALLENGES
9
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
FINAL SUMMARY
Mobilize your organization and leverage
existing mobile POS, mobile purchasing
and mobile warehouse solutions
Adopt a cloud-ready platform for higher
business agility
Progress in Cross-Channel thanks
to achieving higher merchandise
management agility, ensuring supply
chain management efficiency and gaining
insights into your business performance
across all channels with a powerful
embedded analytics engine
Adapt for competitiveness by easily
adapting the solution to your business
needs and not the other way around
React faster to market changes and
leverage continous innovations delivered
by Openbravo thanks to modularity, which
allows you to safely and rapidly introduce
modifications and dramatically simplifies
the upgrade process
Be prepared for your future growth.
Introduce new stores, manage a huge
number of products and assortments or
expand internationally thanks to support
to international operations
Ensure higher operational efficiency and
security with advanced features such as
auditing or manager approvals that help
to minimize risk of fraud activities
Leverage prior investments with a
platform that is easy to integrate with
Empower your staff and boost productivity
with a solution which is easy to learn
and use and provide modern tools that
will help to improve decision making and
customer service

17. · 17 ·
Experience Openbravo products by accessing our
demonstration environments.
Start with the Product Tour to get a first impression through
a guided and interactive tour and continue with the Online
Trial on your own to go into more detail with the product
exploration.
http://www.openbravo.com/demo/

18. HOW TO TURN 9 RETAIL IT
CHALLENGES INTO 9 BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES
· 18·
Intro
Embracing mobility
Leveraging the cloud
Progressing in cross-channel
Leveraging competitive advantages
Being agile and staying innovative
Being prepared for growth
Ensuring secure operations
Leveraging prior IT investments
Improving customer service and boosting
staff productivity
Final Summary
Infographics
INFOGRAPHICS:
*MARKET STUDY
ON THE STATE
OF THE RETAIL
SECTOR BY
OPENBRAVO

19. · 19 ·

20. About us:
Openbravo is the provider of the preferred Commerce and ERP Platform. A state-of-the-art Commerce
solution for agile retailers and a broad horizontal ERP solution for any industry, both built on top of a flexible
and easily extendible web, mobile and cloud-ready development platform, ready to power companies’ ideas
for building smart enterprise solutions. Openbravo solutions are distributed exclusively through the network
of global Openbravo partners.With 3m+ downloads and 1,000s of organizations using Openbravo solutions
every day, Openbravo is a world leader in the Open Source enterprise software space.