The experiential economy driving omnichannel for today’s retail consumers enables them to bridge the virtual as well as the physical through a combination of seamless online and in-store shopping. Toke Tangkjaer of Impero Software and Brian Teuscher of Intel spoke with Bobby Brill about the managed devices and cloud ecosystem that support these innovations and how Impero and Intel’s solutions work to make them a seamless consumer experience.
“It’s really a unique experience for each individual,” says Brian Teuscher. “Some customers want to walk into the store; others want to do it all online. And in recent years we’ve seen this change, and it’s not just in clothing stores. People want to experience these transactions in their own personal way.”
The challenge that Toke Tangkjaer sees from an IT perspective to realize this experiential economy is fusing the offline with the online world to provide that seamless checkout process. “The ability for a consumer to walk through a store and checkout seamlessly, whether that’s via an iPad, a merchant who comes over and checks out quickly via a tablet, or it’s a self-service checkout, ultimately comes down to what it offers and what it adds in terms of complexity to an IT ecosystem. And those are more and more devices that need to be supported and maintained.”
Creating these shopping experiences means putting more devices into the equation. That backend means greater security and regulatory compliance, and the devices must be up and running. “That’s why device management becomes so important,” Teuscher says. “Because in many cases they try to build an experience around using these devices. The device is not the experience, but using it provides the experience users want.”
As devices become increasingly capable of delivering unique experiences, from virtual reality to other augmented retail solutions, so does the requirement for these devices to be operational and functional. If the solution doesn’t work, it isn’t a solution. The bottom line for all of these devices is security and manageability. Teuscher added: “What are the security permissions you have there? How did you create these walls from a security perspective to ensure that only the people who should have access to certain things have access to them?” The number of devices is not the critical issue; managing and securing those devices is.
Learn more about managed device solutions and cloud ecosystems by connecting to Toke Tangkjaer and Brian Teuscher on LinkedIn or visit:
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