Cloud Computing and Retail

The much talked about topic these days is Cloud Computing but, does it make any sense to associate Retail with Cloud Computing?! We have often read this phrase at many business and technical articles that “Cloud has good potentials” and we often heard the big5 companies doing serious investments in this area. I think it is important to relook the concept of cloud computing before associating this technology with retail industry.

Not many businesses truly understand the concept of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS and the difference between public, private and hybrid clouds. But to me it’s a make-it or break-it decision while choosing the right cloud model for your business. We will investigate these models in a different blog.

Salesforce.com who I think are the real leaders for cloud computing identified a specific need; that it’s hard for a small to midsize business to manage big systems like CRM. With Salesforce.com, now those same companies only need a web browser. Another very important example is Amazon who has rated number 1 as the strongest retailer in 2010 according to RIS news.

Here are some of the top benefits a retailer would get out of cloud.

Quick and cost effective deployments: Salesforce.com is being used by the Japanese government to implement a nationwide eco-point program. Consumers get points for buying eco-friendly appliances and receive credits that they can use towards future purchases – and the entire system was built on Force.com site technology in three weeks.

Close relationship with customer: the most important step to build the relationship with customer is to know the specific customer needs. Cloud makes it easy to track customer buying pattern, which can further used for customer-basket-analysis and help to approach with right product at right time.

Cost effective inventory investment: cloud helps business to maintain daily sales, inventory reorder level and reporting. Cloud services also allows retailers to plan demand patten through online services dynamically whether that is directly in-house or through their suppliers.

Variety of platform supported: cloud enables retailers to reach out their customers through Web, mobile, or hybrid-applications that use the cloud.

Muhammad Rizwan