With increasing high-street competition, AI is redefining the banking sector with each and every customer interaction. With banks, like NatWest, deploying AI-based virtual assistants to offer customer-facing communication around the clock, the consumer banking experience is now heavily digitised, with 86% of banks stating they now use AI technologies in some way. 

Martin Linstrom, Managing Director for UK and Ireland at IPsoft, looks at the next stage in technological evolution of the banking industry and how artificial intelligence (AI) will redefine banking as we know it.

The banking industry has made huge strides to drive innovation by investing in new technologies over the last few decades. Commercial banks first adopted telephone banking, then came internet banking and now, for most customers, all your financial services needs can be met via an app. Now, as we enter the conversational era enabled by cognitive AI, customer expectations have evolved once again.

Banks have long been ahead of the curve in terms of elevating the user experience for their customers and so, it’s perhaps unsurprising that many are already looking to AI-powered digital assistants and are investing in cognitive solutions to upgrade and scale customer-facing financial management processes. Many banks are also looking at how they can provide the same simple, frictionless service to their own employees.

Banks have long been ahead of the curve in terms of elevating the user experience for their customers and so, it’s perhaps unsurprising that many are already looking to AI-powered digital assistants

As AI-powered customer interfaces gain mainstream acceptance, we will once again see a revolution in technological change within the banking industry. So, what functions within banks will cognitive assistants transform?

Building a hybrid workforce

Virtual assistants have a twofold capability which is driving innovation in the banking industry. Firstly, they can be implemented in back office functions such as finance or HR and secondly, they can supplement customer service centres. Creating a hybrid workforce of human employees and AI-powered virtual assistants can help drive enormous cost efficiencies and increase staff productivity. Employees in administrative roles can pass their repetitive tasks over to their digital colleague, freeing up their time to focus on more creative or interesting work that requires soft skills whilst customer service agents can pass standard requests through an AI system leaving them with only the most complex of customer queries to deal with.

Ubiquitous customer services

One of the most attractive things about AI-powered customer services for banks is its ubiquity. With virtual customer service agents available 24/7 and through a variety of channels such as live message, telephone or email, it’s a win-win situation for both bank staff and customers. From a customer’s perspective, simple requests such as password resets or international transactions can be performed in an instant and there’s no need to visit the bank or spend an hour in a telephone queue to speak to a human agent.

One of the most attractive things about AI-powered customer services for banks is its ubiquity.

Banks adopting customer-facing AI solutions are in fact seeing increased customer satisfaction rates despite removing the human-to-human contact element. For example, since implementing IPsoft’s AI solution, Amelia, SEB, a leading Nordic bank has been able to avoid 544 hours of escalations to customer support with an average handle time of six minutes. What’s more, Amelia has reached an 85% accuracy in immediate intent recognition which has meant a faster service delivery to customers and soaring customer satisfaction.

24/7 banking support

Unlike human agents, digital assistants can work around the clock, seven days a week with no breaks and without tiring. For modern consumers, particularly young digital natives who expect to be able to manage their finances at any time of the day, integrating AI into a bank’s customer service centre will soon become the norm. Chatbots are already an industry standard, therefore at the very least, banks that don’t continue scaling this technology throughout their business will find themselves at a severe competitive disadvantage, trailing behind the market by delivering an inferior customer service experience.

Go beyond simple chatbots

Digital assistants with cognitive intelligence capabilities represent the next leap in automation for financial institutions. Digital colleagues like Amelia are now able to perform tasks above and beyond mere transactional ones, digitising more complex financial management processes such as wealth management onboarding and mortgage applications. Unlike simple chatbots, digital colleagues are also able to develop their cognitive abilities through an advanced Natural Language Interface (NLI) which can process customer queries asked in hundreds of different ways, including slang. More importantly for the banking industry, they can handle context switching so that when a customer moves quickly from one request to another, the interface is able to process both requests without starting over.

Many banks have already integrated voice capabilities into their finance management solutions. Customers communicate via text or voice to gain quick answers to banking questions, tailored financial advice and can even carry out transactions all from the same channel. Voice-enabled digital assistants can handle payments and transfers, credit card activation, charge disputes and travel alerts for customers at any time, freeing up customer services teams to focus on more complex customer enquiries and giving customers full control and access to their finances. Conversational AI will become more and more widely accepted as banks start to harness the technology to help drive customer engagement and operational efficiencies.

Sophisticated systems can recognise patterns from the sheer amount of data that they are processing. Thanks to these capabilities, businesses can easily find out the most common types of transactions by customers of a certain demographic and can then retarget this group for specific marketing or sales campaigns, helping to drive revenue.

Delivering better insights and improved security

Unlocking key business insights is another key driver motivating banks to invest in AI. Sophisticated systems can recognise patterns from the sheer amount of data that they are processing. Thanks to these capabilities, businesses can easily find out the most common types of transactions by customers of a certain demographic and can then retarget this group for specific marketing or sales campaigns, helping to drive revenue. These real time insights can help business leaders make better, more strategic decisions that are informed through concrete data.

Real-time data mining can also be applied to improve customer security as many AI tools have built-in privacy and security by design. An AI-powered virtual assistant can pick up on irregular payments immediately, flagging potential “phishers” to a human agent for additional authentication. What’s more, advanced machine learning solutions can improve over time so that banks can continue to scale up their services. Virtual assistants like Amelia can go one step further by ‘learning on the job.’ Essentially, when Amelia does not understand a request or query she can pass it on to a human colleague but remains in the conversation to learn how to resolve the issue next time.

The future of retail banking

The financial services industry has long been at the forefront of technological innovation. Whilst many businesses are still debating whether to invest in AI, major banks are very much leading the way to invest in the technology and are thriving as a result. As virtual assistants become increasingly more intelligent and their cognitive abilities develop, the expectations for banks and the services they offer will be elevated. Banks that rest on their laurels and refuse to acknowledge this risk falling behind permanently, particularly with the slew of challenger fintech companies that are appearing on the market, offering dynamic and tailored financial services at a lower price.

Finance Monthly delves into the potential impact of an ‘Amazon tax’ and the alternative solutions that can help the struggling British bricks-and-mortar retailers.  

With a series of high-profile collapses and CVAs, including the recent turbulences that House of Fraser is faced with, Britain has seen its fair share of high-street horror stories in 2018. Stores like Toys R Us UK, Maplin and Mothercare are all facing extinction, whilst online retailers such as Amazon are stronger than ever, cashing in $2.5bn per quarter and paying less and less corporation tax with Amazon’s UK tax bill falling about 40% in 2017, and it paying just £4.6 million ($5.6 million). In times like these, the UK retail industry has naturally called on the Government to review its outdated corporation tax system and take action to help the struggling high street. Chancellor Philip Hammond has in turn announced that he is considering a special retail tax on online business, dubbed the ‘Amazon tax’, in order to establish a “level-playing field” for online retailers and high-street shops. But is a new tax really the solution that will balance the market out? Will it be the solution that traditional trade needs? 

Is Amazon’s Existence the Biggest Problem?

Consumer habits are changing rapidly with the continued growth of online shopping, but the truth is that the extraordinary success of web traders is only one of the aspects to consider when looking for the reasons behind the decline in traditional retail. And even though a hike in the tax that Amazon pays may seem like a necessary and logical step, it will be nothing more than a minor distraction from the bigger issue and something that will mainly benefit the Treasury.

It is worth noting that the UK store chains that have collapsed recently did so due to not having the right products at the right prices, not staying up-to-date with consumer trends, not targeting the right customers or not investing enough in their businesses. Surely, online-only merchants have transformed the trade landscape and the UK tax system needs to be adjusted in order to reflect the current retail dynamics – especially when Amazon’s tax bill for 2017 was only £4.6 million on £2 billion of sales. But is the fact that the web giant is paying such a low amount of tax the reason for the collapse of a number of bricks-and-mortar retailers? I think not.

Moreover, as Bloomberg points out, an internet shopping tax could end up backfiring and hurting the bricks-and-mortar retailers it is intended to help. According to the British Retail Consortium, in 2017, more than 17% of sales were made online. Over half of them were with businesses that also have shops. Thus, retailers such as Next Plc, which has both online and offline businesses, could face “a double tax whammy”.

The Real Problem

Driving restrictions around city centres, increased parking charges by local councils and state demands such as minimum wage legislation and Sunday trading laws have had a negative impact on bricks-and-mortar retail. Then there is the main challenge in the face of sky-high business rates which have been the bane of countless entrepreneurs trying to establish a high-street presence. In an article for The Telegraph, Ruth Davidson wrote that the UK retail sector, which makes up 5% of the country’s economy, is paying “25% of all business rates, over £7 billion per year”. One might argue that in order to help bricks-and-mortar retailers and keep British town centres bustling with thriving commerce, politicians could perhaps work towards reducing the financial burden they’re faced with, before punishing web giants for offering an easy and convenient way to shop in this digital era. In order to keep up with their online competitors, traditional stores need to focus on technology innovation and redesigning the experience that the modern-day customer expects. But most importantly, they need the budget to do so and a reduction in business rates for high-street stores could be one way to provide them with some extra cash to invest in technology.

Another thing to consider, as Andrea Felsted suggests, could be raising business rates for offices and warehouses and cutting them for shops. That would “address the disparity between shopfront-heavy retailers and online-only businesses, which rely on distribution centres to serve their customers”.

A potential Amazon tax for all web-only retailers will not help bricks-and-mortar retail to innovate. Surely, it will level the playing field, but apart from that, all we can expect will be a slowdown in online shopping without doing anything to solve the current problems that traditional traders are struggling with.

According to new research from leading payment provider MasterCard, biometric technology is set to become an integral part of all online shopping, as tighter regulations concerning online fraud are introduced. For instance, new EU regulations come into effect next September, which will increase the number of transactions subject to two factor authentication, known as “Strong Customer Authentication” (SCA).

MasterCard has been a board member of The Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance since 2013. FIDO is a global non-profit trade association developing technical standards and certification programmes for simpler, stronger authentication.

Andrew Shikiar, CMO of The FIDO Alliance, comments: “MasterCard is spot on in its assessment; the use of passwords is woefully outdated as a means of online authentication. The problem has long been overreliance on yesterday’s approach and a reluctance to embrace the ways in which technology has transformed both our habits and the options available to us. It’s encouraging to see that the tide is finally turning, thanks in large part to evolving regulatory requirements in response to escalating levels of online fraud. Far more secure methods of authentication, including biometrics, are now readily available at our fingerprints, which can greatly improve security and privacy for consumers accessing online services, while improving the user experience into the bargain.

“As the range of activities we undertake online using mobile devices continues to rise, the more sensitive transactions – such as payments and money transfers – can be facilitated using device-enabled strong authentication. However, its success hinges on the industry’s ability to offer this at internet scale. Biometric modalities deliver a number of user experience benefits, but not all biometric systems are built on secure, tried-and-true public key cryptography. Biometric authentication relies on matching an input to a held piece of original data, and how that matching process is managed - and in particular how identifying data is stored - raises a host of security and privacy questions. For instance, if data is held in an online central database, a breach of that data could be catastrophic.

“On the contrary, a decentralised approach allows users to authenticate by using a private key on their personal device to sign a cryptographic authentication challenge from the service provider’s server. With this approach, the service provider only stores a public key associated with that user’s account, which cannot be leveraged by a hacker having infiltrated a database. This is one of many reasons why leading service providers like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Dropbox and many more have deployed FIDO Authentication to protect hundreds of millions of consumers around the world, while reducing the outdated reliance on passwords.”

(Source: The FIDO Alliance)

It seems like every business is now charging a monthly subscription, but, if done right, that’s not always a bad thing.

CNN's Jon Sarlin explains how Uber moved into the biggest market in the country and defeated the formidable yellow cab industry.

Outsourcing agreements worth £718 million were signed between January and March, according to the Arvato UK Outsourcing Index.

Outsourcing contracts worth £718 million were signed in the UK between January and March this year, with financial services and retail businesses the most active buyers, according to the Arvato UK Outsourcing Index.

The research, compiled by business outsourcing partner Arvato and industry analyst NelsonHall, found that deals worth £363 million were signed in the financial services sector, accounting for 51% of the total UK outsourcing market in Q1 and more than double the value agreed in the previous quarter (£153 million).

Retail companies agreed outsourcing deals worth £140 million in the first quarter of this year after three months of no activity in October to December 2017, according to the findings.

The rise in spending across retail and financial services contributed to an eight% increase in total contract value compared with the last quarter of 2017.

Customer service agreements continued to factor highly in UK outsourcing activity, accounting for over 20% of all spend (£152 million). This, combined with HR and payment processing contracts, saw Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) deals account for £256 million of spend – up from £179 million agreed in Q4 2017.

IT Outsourcing (ITO) contracts worth £462 million were signed in Q1, with procurement focused on cloud computing, and asset and infrastructure management.

Despite the rise in activity quarter-on-quarter, the value of outsourcing contracts signed in Q1 represents a more subdued start to the year compared with 2017 which was a record year for the industry. The research found that spend on outsourcing deals between January and March has fallen 75% year-on-year from Q1 2017.

Debra Maxwell, CEO, CRM Solutions UK & Ireland, Arvato, said: “Following a strong year for UK outsourcing in 2017, we’ve seen a more subdued market in the first quarter. With Brexit uncertainty continuing to influence buying decisions and the imminent implementation of GDPR taking up internal resources, it is to be expected that fewer deals would make it over the line in this period.

“Yet, our findings show there remains strong appetite from businesses to work with outsourcing partners to bring in external expertise for key operational areas such as customer services, and to invest in maintaining a robust IT infrastructure.”

The private sector dominated the UK outsourcing market in Q1 as businesses accounted for 90% (£645 million) of the total value of contracts signed, according to the findings.

The research found that public sector organisations agreed deals worth £73 million over the period, down from £229 million in the previous quarter. Government departments focused on securing contracts for cloud computing and application and infrastructure management.

The Arvato UK Outsourcing Index is compiled by leading BPO and IT outsourcing research and analysis firm NelsonHall, in partnership with Arvato UK. The research is based on an analysis of outsourcing contracts procured in the UK market between January and March 2018.

(Source: Arvato UK & Ireland)

Recent news reports regarding Marks & Spencer’s shop closures have left other high street retailers feeling fearful about profits.

With plans to close 100 stores by 2022, in what M&S bosses are calling a re-organization of the entire retail chain, the aim is to turn a third of its in-store sales into online sales.

This of course is another blight in the midst of a global retail infection, predominantly caused by the propagation of online buying. Below Finance Monthly hears Your Thoughts on M&S’ shop cuts and the potential consequences across the UK.

Joe Rabah, Managing Director for EMEA, RMG Networks:

With the recent announcements that M&S is said to close 100 stores and that House of Fraser could close up to half its stores, it’s no secret that the UK high-street is under pressure as a result of changing shopper behaviour and a drastically altered customer journey.

For retailers to survive and adapt they must embrace technology to create meaningful, immersive retail experiences. However, it’s not enough for retailers to invest in technology without doing so in a purposeful manner and knowing the solutions that they invest in are going to be specifically relevant to their business and their customers. It’s essential that retailers use platforms that create frictionless purchasing experiences for their customers, enabling them to increase customer engagement that is tailored to individual customer needs and habits. In doing so they will drive customer loyalty and provide consistent cross-channel experiences. Today’s solution is not tomorrow’s in retail, and technology can either allow a brand to pivot so that it can adapt quickly to changing customer expectations, or it can lock a brand into delivering stale customer experiences.

While we don’t know what the future holds, retailers must understand whether the technology they are investing in suits a clearly defined purpose and is adaptable enough to suit their future needs and their customers’ evolving customer expectations, and consider this before making any technological investment.

Julian Fisher, CEO, Jisp:

With retailers, such as Marks & Spencer, facing large declines in high street spending as consumers turn to online shopping, bricks and mortar stores must evaluate how they are interacting with customers. We are a nation of shoppers and shopkeepers, but convenience is a key factor in driving potential instore customers online where they have access to a wealth of information, deals and personalised offers. To keep customers in stores, the high street shopping experience must provide this instantaneous access to information and personalisation through handheld devices. It is essential that retailers increase investment in areas such as mobile technology to bring the shop floor into the 21st century.

The restructuring decisions that Steve Rowe is making will have the desired effect with these future-thinking closures a controlled choice with M&S in charge of its own destiny. Customer service and quality of merchandise has been a hallmark of M&S for years.

Looking ahead, it will be innovation and the ability for stores and their staff to connect and personalise their brand with new customers who are armed with devices and a world of information and content. If they don’t they may succumb to the fate of others who have been unwilling to embrace changing consumer behaviours.

Iain Wells, Investment Manager, Kames Capital:

Will M&S shares be up or down tomorrow when they announce their results? I don’t know. Expectations are certainly low with earnings forecast to be down nearly 10%. The bad weather in the first quarter, that kept shoppers at home, has been so widely discussed that it can surely provide no negative surprises. With a dividend yield of 6.3%, and a price earnings ratio 9.8x, results that are in-line with expectations could see the shares rise.

While the share may rise on the day, more important is what evidence there is that the structural pressures that have impacted M&S over many years are easing. On this I am less confident. It is not that M&S is a “bad” retailer, just that the retailing world is changing around it faster than it can adapt, and the process of adaptation is painful for shareholders.

The key issues that M&S are trying to address include:

• Too many stores - too much is of the wrong size or in the wrong location. Addressing this is usually costly
• The increase in competition, particularly in clothing, and much of it from on-line players
• The shift to on-line which puts downward pressure on the store profitability, even if the on-line sale is made by M&S rather than a competitor
• Competitiveness of the food offer. With much of the growth of the business centred around food getting this right is crucial.
• Stabilisation/growth in market shares

Everyone has a view about M&S, what they are doing well, and what they are doing badly. As a national institution management have the misfortune of having to carry out their plans on a very public stage.

Terry Hunter, UK Managing Director, Astound Commerce:

The news of the M&S store closures is yet another dagger in the heart of the British high-street. The retailer plans to move a third of its sales online, and intends to instead have fewer, larger clothing and homeware stores in better locations. If the company is going to recover from its recent sales slump, it is imperative that it has an exceptional online offering. It will now be competing more directly than ever with the likes of Amazon and Asos.

Online retailers like Asos take advantage of efficient and nimble business models by avoiding the costly overheads associated with running bricks-and-mortar stores and as a result, they can afford to invest a great deal in offering websites which give the best possible user experience. Although M&S is cutting back on some of these overheads, it is not as experienced or effective in the ecommerce arena as the pureplay online retailers. M&S needs to make sure its in-store offering works in harmony with its online strategy. The retailer struggled over the Christmas period last year – basic logistical errors caused a real headache as next day delivery targets were missed – a type of error you don’t see the likes of Amazon making. A truly omnichannel approach is the only way that this British retailer is going to recover, let alone flourish.

One factor that is working against M&S is that its customer base has an ageing demographic. The company has been making efforts for some time to attract a younger shopper and an improved online offering could potentially aid this. A younger tech-savvy shopper is more likely to make purchases online rather than instore. One of the key battles for M&S will be ensuring that its predominantly over-50 female shopper continues to visit the new stores, whilst also becoming more active in buying products from its website. It is a difficult road ahead.

Paul Fennemore, Customer Experience Consultant, Sitecore:

M&S faces a similar challenge to many other retailers – in trying to find out exactly who its target market is, and what they want, ahead of them wanting it. Evolving a customer experience strategy on the basis of anticipating needs in this way will require a very sophisticated, multi-channel, cross platform customer experience strategy in place, each of which must feed the other to create a total experience that is worth more than the sum of its parts.

One way it could go about reinventing itself online is to go beyond personalisation – which all brands claim to be able to do – and move to individualisation. This will deliver content to its customers based on specific data points. This will help set it apart from the other online retailers, and help it provide its customers with an unexpected, satisfying experience which will keep them coming back.

By creating a robust individualisation strategy, focusing on customers as individuals, rather than using the more traditional broad personas, M&S will be able to attract a younger, mobile-first demographic, who value individual interactions with brands. The challenge here will be to ensure that experience is consistent across all channels, including mobile, online, social media, and in-store. Integration of its systems will be key for M&S going forward, otherwise customer data will be siloed, meaning they won’t be able to track a customer’s journey efficiently. This will ultimately lead to a worse customer experience, as it won’t be consistent.

Ben Holmes, Head of Display, Samsung UK:

Yet again, we’re seeing more boarded up shop fronts on the British High Street with M&S recently announcing a series of store closures. We understand the predicament M&S is in as it sets about ‘modernising’ its business to ‘meet the changing needs of customers;’ but at the same time, we do believe that bricks and mortar establishments can be part of the modernisation effort rather than being the sacrificial lamb to more investment in online. When every retailer is battling for the same pound spent, businesses definitely need to be more innovative in how they sell to their shoppers. The old rules no longer apply when it comes to in-store retailing in an age where shoppers expect personalisation, digital connectivity and high impact experiences. We’d encourage retailers to experiment with digital technologies like video walls and touchscreen kiosks because these technologies have been proven to drive engagement and sales. Physical stores are definitely not secondary to online retail estate because there is a real opportunity for companies to transform their stores into experiential destinations – think brandship not just flagship. Until retailers start delivering genuine, digital experiences, we can unfortunately expect more casualties.

Adam Powers, Chief Experience Officer, Tribal Worldwide London:

This latest announcement is yet another indicator of a malaise that’s been hanging over UK retail stalwarts for the past few years. The inexorable growth of online commerce means that a strategic rethink must be undertaken for businesses that want to successfully trade on the UK high street. Actually, this is a global challenge, but the UK is one of the most advanced ecommerce markets in the world and so we are seeing the outcomes here earlier. Like Mothercare, M&S is clearly trapped in the middle of a market where they are being squeezed at both ends. Cheaper or more fleet-of-foot competitors are doing product innovation around food (Aldi/Lidl) that was once an M&S sweet spot. Away from food, key competitors have high performing home delivery infrastructure like Next or ASOS that leave M&S looking lumbering and out of touch with modern customer expectations. Additionally, M&S are getting squeezed from the top as style needs for their target demographics are increasingly met by internet optimised clothing competitors. The wrapper around all of this is really customer experience - online and instore, this is the modern retail battleground. From the outside looking in, it appears that nobody at M&S is looking at customer experience holistically, with a mandate to drive radical, customer-centric transformation and the initiatives underway, such as store closing, look piecemeal. What’s particularly worrying about M&S delivering a turnaround, is that the way things are emerging must be highly unsettling for the workforce, the very people who are at the frontline of delivering customer experience.

John Taylor, Co-CEO, Duologi:

The internet has made it easier than ever before for customers to compare prices and shop around online, without ever having to leave the comfort of their homes. This subsequent decrease in footfall to the high street has led to a number of high-street brands opting to close stores where footfall has dwindled to save on overheads, with M&S being just the latest example of this.

However, this does not mean that the high street is dying – far from it. Rather, we’re seeing a shift in the retail landscape, wherein the retailers set to thrive will be the more flexible, agile brands which can offer customers a choice in how they shop and pay for products.

To accomplish this, savvy smaller retailers are taking the time to optimise their online presence to sit alongside their bricks-and-mortar offering, engaging customers who no longer shop with a brand due to ongoing store closures.

This flexibility also extends to the payment process itself. With consumer confidence currently low, flexible finance options such interest free credit, 0% finance and buy-now-pay-later can support shoppers at the time of purchase – particularly for big-ticket items – which can both engender consumer loyalty and increase average basket values.

Charles Brook, Partner, Poppleton & Appleby:

We should be careful not to jump to conclusions. There is undoubtedly an acceleration of change in the retail market with some large towns experiencing retail depletion more than others. Statistics released this week in Yorkshire put Doncaster, Barnsley and Huddersfield towards the top of those hit hardest by a combined net loss of more than 1,000 retail outlets in the past 12 months.

Marks & Spencer is shifting the focus of its in-store offering away from homewares and clothing to place emphasis on and serve its online offering in a more contemporary manner. This is a sensible response to the evolved way in which even its traditionally conservative-minded customers now shop and, having such a significant leasehold estate, and it needs to plan well ahead. I think it highly unlikely that M&S would try to foist a Company Voluntary Arrangement on its landlords.

Perhaps this is a good time to deliver seemingly bad news. The M&S Board may be gambling on the market and its major shareholders (if not the public at large) recognising that whatever issues have hit other big names, M&S is reading the trading conditions and charting its future trading strategy with typical caution.

Rick Smith, Director, Forbes Burton:

Retail is going through a transition, and a transition that M&S should have seen coming, especially with the likes of Ebay / Amazon etc dominating the way people shop, but unfortunately for all those concerned (towns, cities, the high street, communities, shoppers, staff) they didn’t. High street shopping is now all about the experience.

However, it’s not just the blue-chip retailers fault, it’s a collective from councils, property owners and communities. This should have been recognised and adaptive investment should have been put in place a long time ago. The problem we have now is that it’s all knee jerk and I’m not convinced they are going about it the right way. Closed high street shops is simply demoralising for the community and once the reality of it sets in it’s quite scary when you start thinking more about it.

M&S haven’t kept up with the times and they need to look at online sales especially for the struggling clothes and homeware sections. While they’ve been able to do well compared to their competition by attracting females to their clothing range, they have failed to find their proper place in the market on this side of the business and need to get this totally right. Also, many of the stores need modernising which is difficult when profits are dropping and there’s no money for investment.

Their food range is nice and appeals to a small, specialised section of the population. However, competitors have caught up with their food offerings and often for much less with most now doing a ‘finest’ or similar range. A small percentage do also believe the bad press around packaged meals, and this combined with the offerings from the competitors has had a knock-on effect because there has been no differentiator in terms of quality. M&S food is of very good quality, but it is now evident with these closures that they do not have the resources to convince the public otherwise.

Emma Thompson, Head of Strategy, Visualsoft:

E-retail is booming at the moment, with consumers currently spending a staggering £1.2 billion a week online. As such, high street retailers need to make the most of this opportunity to ensure they have the best chance of success. Those who fail to do so can expect to fall behind more digital-savvy competitors, as we have seen with the likes of Toys ‘R’ Us and Maplin.

While it still remains to be seen whether Marks and Spencer’s store closures will help boost performance, it is heading in the right direction by using this restructure to support the growth of its website. This forward-thinking attitude could see the retailer maximising its growth potential, as the majority of the UK’s top retailers that neglect their online offering risk stunting their growth as a result.

For Marks and Spencer to effectively focus its efforts, it needs to not only improve its website’s user experience, but also utilise a variety of online channels to boost revenue. Social media in particular should be a priority, given that a growing proportion of e-retail sales are driven through the likes of Instagram and Facebook. If the retail giant prioritises these areas, it can expect advantageous results to follow.

Leigh Moody, UK Managing Director at SOTI:

The decision to close 100 stores over the next four years is a bold decision from one of the UK’s leading retailers and highlights the shift in focus from high-street to online in order to keep up with evolving consumer trends.

In response to this change and to support its online growth plans, M&S will need to consider how they integrate their mobility management strategy across their entire on and offline operation to ensure they are streamlined, data is protected and customer demands are met.

As M&S becomes more digitally enabled across all channels including mobile and social, mobility will be key in influencing the shopping experience, touching every part of the value chain which in turn, will lead to further opportunities for cost savings and buying efficiencies.

We would love to hear more of Your Thoughts on this, so feel free to comment below and tell us what you think!

2018 is expected to be the year for high street collapses, and it’s already looking like a grim year for retail survival, never mind growth. In the UK 2017 saw even more shops go bankrupt, and the last decade has only been exemplary of a slow decay for British shopping, from Woolworths, BHS and JJB Sports, to Blockbuster, Virgin Megastores and Phones 4U.

Above is Finance Monthlys list of five top UK retailers that are the most likely to be closing down in 2018.

In 2017 a grand 50 US retailers filed for bankruptcy, including Toys R Us, True Religion and RadioShack, and 2018 is set to be just that much harsher for US malls and high streets, with over 3600 stores set for closure.

Above, Finance Monthly takes a look at 5 of the most anticipated ‘closing downs’ on America’s high streets this year.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all around us. From providing doctors with patient data in real time, to tracking vehicle performance, to automating building systems, IoT is transforming businesses and enabling organisations to create entirely new systems and services, engage customers and drive growth. Below Richard Smith, Regional Manager at SOTI, gives us a brief on the top three industries ready for IOT transformation in 2018.

Despite the huge rise in connected devices, there are still some industries that are hesitant to adopt new technologies, regardless of the business benefits. With nearly 20 billion devices^[1] predicted to be connected to the IoT by 2020, it is essential that organisations invest in new IoT technologies to keep up with evolving customer demands.

With IoT’s growing maturity comes new approaches, business models, and solutions that will see organisations ramping up deployments and incorporating this technology into their products, processes and workflows.

Almost every industry can benefit from investing in IoT but the important thing to consider is that IoT cannot be deployed in silo. Connecting a business from a technology perspective is all about leveraging mobile (where the business information resides) with IoT. Mobility has taken functionality way beyond the four walls of a business but IoT stands to amplify this.

The communication between mobile and IoT allows even more information to be connected to back office systems even without the need for human intervention. As the adoption of this technology continues, these three industries are ripe for IoT transformation.

Healthcare

IoT has taken healthcare by storm. From wearables that track patient health, to providing remote care to patients who live in isolated areas, the shift towards the digitalisation of the healthcare industry has seen more healthcare workers getting connected and relying on mobile devices. The biggest benefit of IoT in healthcare is to keep patients out of the hospital by providing more effective home care. This is helping to reduce re-infections but also reduces costs, especially when it comes to monitoring patients with chronic illnesses.

Mobile devices are enabling doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners to monitor patients outside of the hospital; wearable devices track pulse rates and motion sensors and trackers protect more vulnerable patients. These remote patient monitors provide richer information in a timelier fashion. The ability to now track patients over a 24/7 period - compared to an hour’s assessment in a hospital room – can not only help to diagnose illnesses quicker, but can also measure the effect of treatment. If a medication impacts the patient’s readings, a doctor can be aware of this problem before a patient tells them.

This method of patient tracking not only reduces the complexity for the healthcare facility in offering an exemplary level of patient care, but also reduces the cost. Wearable devices are extremely cost effective and the accuracy of the data reduces patient time in the hospitals, which has another positive impact on costs.

As more and more medical devices become internet-connected with this evolving technology, it is vital that the healthcare industry ensures its compliant with data protection laws when it comes to the transportation of this data. Operators must ensure that medical grade devices are configured effectively, that passwords and encryption is in place and that the connection between the devices is secure to protect patient data from potential hackers.

Transportation and Logistics

Whether by air, ground or sea, transportation and logistics are essential components to many enterprises’ productivity, and access to real-time data is critical. There is a growing reliance on IoT and mobile devices to provide visibility into the supply chain right through to personnel, equipment and transactions that enable enterprises to better support peak operations in real time.

Transportation and logistics businesses are focused on maximising supply chain efficiency to sustain profitability and efficiencies. IoT has already begun to disrupt this industry through systems that are able to sense and respond to vehicle usage and changes in real-time, managing downtime to operate fleets at the lowest possible cost.

IoT provides the ability to track where vehicles are in their route, ensuring they are delivering packages and goods on time and being able to reroute trucks based on live situations such as accidents, road closures or weather conditions. With workers constantly on the move, visibility into where these assets are, and what they are doing can improve business operations.

With the announcement of driverless trucks, IoT will play a major role in tracking vehicles on their routes, deploying preventative maintenance, observing driver behavior and monitoring vehicle security with the goal of improving the bottom line.

Retail

Retail is one of the most fast-paced industries globally. According to Accenture^[2], the IoT movement offers retailers opportunities in three critical areas: customer experience, the supply chain and new channels along with revenue streams.

IoT is already being used in retail, but 2018 will be the year where this technology really transforms the customer experience. We’ve already seen an increase in customer touchpoints – such as in-store tablets and online chatbots – but this will evolve rapidly over the next 12 months as shops become even more connected.

For example, we will increasingly see sensors being used for inventory management, allowing a connection to be made from back-end inventory to in-store and online. Also, the in-store customer experience is transforming to meet the demands of the digital consumer – as such, beacons will be used to push relevant messages at point-of-sale and sensors will be in operation to track patterns to develop better instore layouts

Consumers are now taking these features of the technology into account. According to our own research^[3], 67 per cent of shoppers are more likely to shop at a store that integrates technology and over two-thirds believe retailers that utilise more technology enable a faster shopping experience.

What’s most exciting for the coming year is how extensive the applications of IoT in retail are. Robots will stack shelves, freeing up staff to add value to the customer, while smart mirrors will let customers virtually try on clothes and connected beacons will send out personalised offers to consumers immediately as they enter the shop.

Future-proofing IoT

This year will be a breakthrough in IoT usage and applications across a wide variety of industries. The ubiquitous nature of IoT will be evident and the technologies driving the usage will continue to emerge and evolve to meet the important needs of deployment, distribution and security.

SOTI MobiControl is an enterprise mobility management solution that secures and manages IoT devices, offering geo fencing functionality to track devices, allowing remote management and keeping both the device and connection secure.

As with any early technology deployment, the standardisation of IoT will be a critical consideration across all industry sectors, to avoid fragmentation and allow integration of all business operations that need to be built in.

Each industry will be uniquely impacted by IoT but essentially they will all experience a more streamlined business process because of increased connectivity, reliability and efficiency taking business connectivity to the next level.

[1] https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2636073

[2] https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_14/Accenture-The-Internet-Of-Things.pdf

[3] https://www.soti.net/media/269478/retail-infographic-2018.pdf

This week we learnt that two of the UK’s top supermarkets are merging, shaking up grocery shopping for generations to come. The £13 Billion merger between Walmart-owned Asda and Sainsbury’s, which recently bought out Nectar, is set to create a grocery powerhouse that can finally compete against Tesco Stores.

Following the announcement shares rocketed and the public was happy to hear prices would receive a 10% cut as a consequence of the merger. Rpeorts indicate no jobs will be cut, nor will any stores be closed. So what is this merger all about?

Finance Monthly spoke to Dr Naaguesh Appadu, Research Fellow at Cass Business School and member of the Mergers & Acquisitions Research Centre, who comments on Sainsbury's and Asda agreeing to £13bn merger.

Dr Naaguesh Appad said: “This deal is about market share. Neither Sainsbury’s nor Asda can afford to stay quiet. You just have to look at the grocery sector right now: Tesco has acquired Booker and Morrisons supplies products to Amazon. Therefore, it is key to show the leadership in terms of groceries for the Sainsbury’s/Asda merger to happen. It should be noted that they neither company can grow organically, and they don’t have the option of staying away Tesco, from the current market leader.

“This deal with see the consumer win two-fold. First, customers will be able to access more products and second, they’ll enjoy lower prices (execs have stated 10%) on common products due to competition on suppliers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of competition, now that executives have stated there are no plans to close Sainsbury's or Asda stores.”

A series of high-profile collapses and CVAs in recent months are clear signs of the challenging conditions currently facing the UK High Street. While many retailers are facing falling sales and increased overheads, it is the stores that fail to adapt to changing consumer habits, such as Toys R Us, which end up paying the price.

By putting a strong business strategy in place to harness the growth potential of e-commerce channels, retailers can mitigate the risks posed by their rising cost base and stay ahead of competitors in this fast-moving industry.

Increased consumer caution, food price inflation and wage stagnation have all contributed to High Street incomes being squeezed. Factors such as the increased National Living Wage and minimum pension contributions, when combined with the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and higher business and property rates mean that many retailers are facing higher overheads than ever before.

The growth of the ‘bricks-to-clicks’ phenomenon has been accelerated by the rise of the ‘on-demand economy’, with consumers less willing to wait to get their hands on goods and more online retailers offering same-day delivery. Developments in technology have also streamlined the online shopping experience, with processes such as returns now easier than ever before. As a result of these changes, it is no surprise that footfall on the High Street is falling, with many shoppers choosing to avoid the crowds and find products at a competitive price online.

With consumer habits changing rapidly, it is essential that retailers build their business models accordingly. Toys R Us is a prime example of a chain which failed to move with the times. As well as relying on large, highly-stocked warehouses, which proved costly to run, it failed to invest in the development of an effective online sales channel with expedited shipping options. Securing access to customer data, via methods such as targeted marketing, will allow retail businesses to adapt quickly to new trends before they are able to have a negative impact on sales.

A number of retailers, including Mothercare, have recently announced an intention to secure a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), which could allow them to restructure their finances and agree voluntary repayment schemes with creditors on a one-to-one basis. Helping the business to continue trading and the existing management team to retain control during negotiations with creditors, this route is often viewed as a more attractive option than pre-pack and other types of administration. However, large numbers of empty stores could have the effect of driving more consumers online, away from the High Street, as well as increasing the likelihood that local councils will try to raise business rates to account for the potential shortfall in payments.

Taking action at an early stage to negotiate shorter leases with landlords could enable retailers to cut costs. Additionally, allowing companies to take advantage of the most profitable times in the retail calendar and hire staff only when needed, pop-up stores could reduce costs and increase flexibility.

Consumers are increasingly treating bricks-and-mortar stores as ‘showrooms’, allowing products to be viewed first-hand before finding them online. With this in mind, retailers should employ a joined-up approach, with on and offline sales channels. If businesses are going to encourage repeat business and meet consumer expectations in the future, simply offering a website is no longer enough. It must complement or even enhance the in-store experience, whilst reflecting the brand identity and being quick and easy to navigate. For example, we may see more customers venturing into stores for product advice, supporting the overall decision-making process, before carrying out their transactions online.

As e-commerce delivery slots become shorter and shorter, it is increasingly important for High Street retailers to have a strong logistics network in place, especially around Christmas and other key times in the retail calendar. Locating reliable local suppliers could also help to ensure supply chain agility, facilitating short lead times whilst allowing stores to vary their purchases depending on what is selling well.

While there is no doubt that these are challenging times for retailers, physical stores will continue to play an important role as part of the consumer buying process. For this reason, the High Street is unlikely to disappear completely. By heeding shifting consumer habits and adapting their business model accordingly, retailers can stay ahead of the curve and secure their position in the High Street for many years to come.