Retailers know they need to evolve, even though they can’t do it overnight. But while there’s no silver bullet for transforming culture, collaboration, and workflows inside a large organization, there are steps you can take to make sure your business is receptive to the change it’s about to undergo.
Are you ready for digital transformation? Here are five key considerations that retailers should take into account before deploying collaboration tools in the workplace.
Understand performance goals
Before you start, you need to understand the business problem and the role that technology is going to play. Solving complex organizational issues needs the relentless management of changes in behavior, process, and technology all working together to support your performance goals and objectives.
Collaboration is not a KPI
Decide how you’re going to measure your KPIs. And remember that collaboration is not a KPI – it’s a means to an end. KPIs could include customer satisfaction, getting products to store faster, selling more products per visit, or retention. You need to get down to that granular detail.
Shut things off
If you have an existing tool which people didn’t like and you invest in something new to overcome those challenges and frustrations, you need to have a path to turning that tool off or at least turning off the elements that are now conflicting. This will impact adoption of new tools and ways of working.
Educate, educate, educate
Launching a tool is the easy part, the real work begins when people use it. People need to be educated on what they should be using it for. Show some examples of what ‘good’ looks like, and also what the tool shouldn’t be used for. Design an internal marketing campaign and treat it exactly the same as an external campaign. A product-driven approach could help here. Think about how companies try to refresh products in the market over time to improve adoption.
Put somebody in charge
For any system, and especially for a collaborative experience, you need someone who can get employees to use the tool in the right way at different times. That might be a community manager who understands the business cycle. Putting up content is the single most important driver of getting people to use the platform and to entice them to contribute their own.
From frontline to back office to HQ, Workplace connects entire retail organisations so they can share, collaborate and transform the customer experience with next-generation technology. www.facebook.com/workplace
Download Retail Insights report to discover why great brand experiences for your customers start with great work experiences for your employees.
