Final Presentation

Retail businesses have always been ‘customer first’ oriented. But this has not been the case with the rise of multinational retail organizations. According to Lynn. S. Paine (2020) retail organizations focused more on corporate policies at the expense of customer’s need because in 2020 the retail organizations effected with COVID-19 and retail organizations should always make sure the corporate policies are not at risk. The retail organization must follow the government guidelines and regulations strictly and implement it. This has led to crippling business in most retail stores with stiff competitions of new entrants in the industry. Challenges facing most retail organizations today are attributed to the use of traditional approaches of doing business in a modern society where all sectors embrace technologies. The normal methodology in the retail business that has been utilized over the course of the years was waterfall technique.

Retail tech insights journal, (2020) highlights some of the critical issues of the retail sector. The main cause of the issue is retail industry is facing the major challenges of continuous changing business environment with unpredictable consequences on their business due to lots of rapid continuous changes of customer requirement according to the latest trends in the market. Retail tech insights outline five major challenges faced by retail industry which includes, customer retention, technology solutions, inspiring and retaining employees, managing customer expectations, and internal communication. There is need for a collaborative approach to streamline the operations of the retail sector. This paper seeks recommendation to help the retail domain companies to adapt towards the agile methodology so that the requirements gathered, developed and deployment into the production will take place at a rapid pace in order to sustain in the retail industry to fulfil the customer requirements with profits.

Effects of the issues in the retail industry

Retail business owners are likely to face serious consequences because of the issues upon which they operate. McGodrick, (2003) explained that for the retail business owners to understand the changing forces that affect their business there is need for clear understanding of the operating environment. Currently there is rapid technological advancements in the business world with ever changing customer’s expectations. Without aligning to this reality cause a retail business to lag behind while overtaken by customer centric organizations like how retail organization can be successful enough in retaining and making customer relationship stronger during the sale and after sale in order to maintain profits to sustain in the retail market. Not understanding the changing business environment keep a retail business in the loop of extinction because they are likely to be overwhelmed by market competition and massive customers’ drifting.

Solution of the research on the problem

There has not been comprehensive focus on adoption of strategic approaches to solve the issues of the retail industry. Santamaria, (2020) argues that retail businesses have a tendency of trying any technology that comes their way without specific need to solve by the technology. As result they have continually experienced challenges in streamlining their business environment. There has not been any problem-solving focused approach by the retail businesses which has in most cases landed their business in endless crisis. This research highlights the importance of implementation of agile methodology in retail domain for the issues faced in the retail domains like customer relationship maintenance for that retail companies need to maintain strong customer databases so that organization can establish and create good customer relationship through various offers. The important goal is establishment of customer retention model as well as employee engagement techniques. The solution of technological aspects would be executing correct innovative strategies like launching mobile application which always makes the customers to stay connected and get the products whenever they require and implementing new latest technological tools which can show positive impact to the organization as well as customers. The solution for internal communication would be like having simultaneous meetings verbally through meeting applications, phone calls and email communications which can be also shared to the one who can have access to work for the problem-solving purposes.

Implementation agile methodology

Pratik Pal & Rajashree, (April 2018) Many organizations are becoming more interested and eager to apply agile methodologies in their business operations. This paper reviews implementation of agile methodologies in retail domain. Among the sectors that have struggled to overcome business barriers is the retail sector. The sector grapples with unpredictable business environment which keep changing every now and then. More crucial is the continuous change in customer tastes and preferences. Gradle, (2016) posits that retail organizations feels the increasing pinch of unprecedented customer expectations which impacts negatively on their business through shift in demand for their products. Implementation of agile methodology is considered has the cure of retail issues by technology experts and business analysts which includes individuals such as Pratik Pal, Rajashree, Tirrell Payton

Lean Agile Methodology

Lean agile methodology is very crucial to the retail system since it reduces the waste without sacrificing productivity. Here the customer will determine the value of the product by the amount they are using to pay the product. According to Zhou, B. (2016) what adds value to the product becomes clear whereby the factors that have no or less value been being taken away. The principles of lean include eliminating waste, building quality, creating knowledge, deferring commitment, delivering fast and respecting people so that the whole process can be optimized. This concept has taken over the Chinese supply chain companies which includes employment empowerment and utilize the of retail services in production when the requirements are deployment with alignment of customer’s needs, necessities, and their wish list.

According to Jaca et.al (2012) Lean methodology is not new it really derives from the old systems such as e-commerce systems, where predecessors are the lineage of lean methodology which can be easily traceable. ERP solutions with help agile methodology can be a good fit in the retail industry where true integration of the entire process of production can take place with standardized the flow of work in production. All this integration where the source of lean methodology, it was initiated with these simple integrations.

According to Jaca et.al 2012 Lean methodology is not new it really derives from the old systems such as e-commerce systems, where predecessors are the lineage of lean methodology which can be traced to Eli Whitney in the years of 1950s. ERP solutions with help agile methodology can be a good fit in the retail industry where true integration of the entire process of production can take place with standardized the flow of work in production. All this integration where the source of lean methodology, it was initiated with these simple integrations.

Importance of agile in retail industry

Agile contains or includes the trends in the retail industry with the aim of promoting the interconnectivity of the several aspects of the system to enhance the process is at pace across the organization in various departments, where collaboration will be easy in terms of developing and deployment according to Kisperska-Moron et.al (2009). This increases productivity in the sector of retail and the quality of the products is increased at the same time because in agile environment the product owners are always stay and get connected with project teams and project managers, so product owner will always make sure products or services which are offered or deployed are meeting the customer expectations or not. Moreover, as product owners have continuous collaborations with projects, the modification or adding new features can be communicated as quickly as possible and project will work on it and new features are deployed again correctly and this results in increase in productivity and quality of products can produced in good amount of time. The relationship between the supplier ends to the product disposal end is made efficient whereby production is deployed in a holistic manner with the inclusion of many companies.

Argument on lean agile

Goldman et al, 1995 argues that lean manufacturing was started as a concept of describing the best practice inside the retail industry and experienced slow revolution but today, the concept should be well utilized in the retail industry also. While the Lean methodology has offered a well-structured collection of methods and enablers, agile retailing needs to have a wide way of thinking which started from the work of agile enterprise forum, which is has its roots to the Lehigh University and was started in 1991. The work is well documented in the 21st century retail enterprise strategy. He says that the point of departure for agile methodology is the increased unpredictability and dynamics of industrial enterprise environment. The same concept is applicable in the retail industry also where unpredictability had become more concern for the retail companies in dealing with requirements of retail customers because in manufacturing industry, the manufacturers should always make sure the product quality is meeting the customer expectations and in the same concept in the retail sector also the application-based system where customers get connected to the organization to gain services. So, the agile methodology has helped both the retail and manufacturing industries equally. The products which are manufactured are offered to the retail companies to market the manufactured products. As the traditional waterfall has been challenging for both retail and manufacturing companies when the customer expectations are not met and where modification and changes are the issues faced and finally it was resulting in wastage of time and budget. The agile methodology has made more collaboration between retail and manufacturing sectors when the product owner’s involvement has been more in every project phase till the maintenance and production phase comes up. The agile methodology has helped the retail companies in handling the unpredictability in the market. He says that agility can be defined as the ability of operating profitably in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictably changing customer opportunities.

Gunnison, (1996) says that agility is more than just the traditional organizational flexibility interpretation. The organizational mastery of changes is in focus in the agile organization; thus, knowledge and people are taken as the most crucial organizational assets. In addition, the capability and organizational learning to reconfigure the business on a continuing basis are key features of the agile enterprise, which is often associated with the ability to intelligently innovate and invent new responses, that is to new markets and business processes.

A retail project vision could comprise of a combination of agile and lean strategic components suited to the specific circumstances of the industrial enterprise because the retail companies always have long term goals in the business, so it is important for retail companies to achieve the objectives on timely basis without any delays to set up new milestones as per the plan. The agile and lean strategic components will work better for the organization who have long term goals and also it important for the retail organization to get aligned with latest new innovative trends in the market so that the customer expectation are met as quicky as possible through rapid deployments where the product owner communication plays a key role and the product owner feedback help the organization to start any project after the past project is completed in order to solve when the issues arises when the old project is delivered successfully. When the retail organization works on one project and delivers it successfully into the productions, as we all time is not one and the same forever after the production also the performance might be good and reaching the customer expectation, but at one point of time unpredictability may takes place. So, for unpredictability, the retail organization should be prepared with agile methodologies to handle the project which helps in solving the problem and deployment can be made successfully and continuous monitoring can be made once the project is delivered into production. The five-step process aims at engaging employees and managers in a constructive dialogue that result to a commonly shared appreciation of the need to change and a common vision of the operation and structure of future production. There are three challenges that are associated with formulating a retail vision, which is integrating different elements and perspectives of a production system, ensuring a collaborative process with a high degree of participation, and including innovative characteristics. These are areas that need serious future research such as complete focus on the future trends through continuous monitoring of customers or users’ attributes where the retail organizations should create their own objectives and goals which are completely aligned with attributes of customers. As attributes of customers are not one and the same forever, it keeps on changing and it will be responsibility of the organization to make sure the products and services are deployed or delivered as per attributes of customer and stay alive in the competitive market.

A retail project vision could play various roles. When the corporate strategy is robust and clear, the retail project vision will comprise of a blueprint for designing and designing of a production system. However, when the environment is turbulent, a direct planning approach can be applied (Gunasekaran, 2001). Two opposing retail project visions might serve as a means of generating a constructive dialogue and could contribute to clarifications of potentials ad direction for the whole company.

Four-phase model concept

There literature has brought about the four-phase model. The first phase comprises of the determining the different users targeted by the product and the functional perimeter with the goal of obtaining the possible visions of the product. This phase lasts longer than the demand analysis in the agile method extreme programming, that, one to three weeks; this results to limitation in performing the in-depth research regarding users and their circumstances. The same concept can be applicable to the retail domain companies which has to follow agile methodology.

There is another model known as the agile model driven development which was developed by Ambler. In this model, the user interface expert is part if the agile team and therefore must conform to the method pace. For this model to work, Ambler recommends that anybody engaged should make effort in understanding the philosophy of another person’s disciplines, in the interest of being able to work together (Deuff, & Cosquer,2013). He as well points that the feedback relating to the usability needs to be considered in much the same way as a technical problem.

The user interface experts do not have the time to stand back in the iterations and to put forward a coherent HCI as they do with a conventional project. To defeat this entanglement (loss of heading because of an absence of a worldwide vision), a few articles propose having a cycle that is consistently committed to the worldwide intelligence of the item. It appears to be critical to take note of a last point identifying with the assets. Apparently the more the user interface specialists need to walk in sync with the engineers, the less time they have ahead of time of the advancement eliminate to convey their work, and the more prominent are the assets which must be.

Strategy to overcoming challenges in retail.

Many retail companies have been passing through challenges due to the use of methodologies such as waterfall. These companies can face challenges such as having one phase of the project being completed before moving to the other phase that means you cannot move the next phase unless you finish the previous step which can be disadvantageous to big projects in the companies.

Agile methodology for stakeholders

To evade such situation agile methodology is implemented to reduce these problems whereby in agile is more focused on the value of the product. Agile methodology is more flexible whereby all stakeholders are engaged, and the deliverables are predictable at earlier stages. Agile methodology should be embraced in retail companies to increase the productivity of the organization. Agile will increase the integration of the processes in the organization and hence the growth of the organization unlike waterfall which cannot allow the processes to run in parallel directions.

Implementation of agile methodology in retail domain is indeed the ultimate cure to challenges facing retail organizations. Most companies that have aligned to the agile business models have witnessed great transformation of their business processes unlike those that have stick to the traditional systems. To implement agile methodology a collaborative approach is needed where the stake holders work in cohorts with the tech teams. The ultimate goal is to overcome business barriers that hinders the smooth operations of the retail domain. Implementation of agile methodology provide for models that enables the business to predict trends in customer expectations and deal with emerging issues at hand before time.

Agile methodology’s enhancement customer service

Zhou B. (2016) in his article explained that the major struggle of retail organizations is to retain and maintain their customer base. Customer expectations change rapidly, and this pose a headache to the retail organizations’ managers. Most customers are always ahead of time of the new trends in the market. Therefore, if a retail firm does not offer their preferred brands, they literally shift to other retail outlets. Implementation of agile methodology enables retail organizations to streamline their demand focusing techniques therefore retaining their customer base.

Relationship management between employees and customers

The toughest challenge among retail companies is the high levels of employee turn -over. This is mostly attributed to cruel working environment with specific problem of long working hours without off days. Armstrong, (2013) a human resource consultant and author of human resource handbook emphasized on employee welfare. Retail organizations tend to focus more on corporate policies and customer satisfaction at the expense of their employees. This in turn affect their morale which leads to poor customer service. Implementation of agile methodology will bring business models that enables for employee management thus building good relationship with customers.

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