Retailers are experiencing immense pressure from all sides. Consumers are showing that they are driven by value and experiences, rather than brand loyalty. They are also shopping differently than they were a year ago and are more willing to move among traditional brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce, and shopping experiences that blend the best of digital and physical shopping, like curbside pickup or buy online, pick up in store. In this fast-paced environment, strategic partnerships are more important than ever. Here’s how trusted partners could help you maintain and grow your business:
Create what used to be considered “impossible”
Have you been interested in deploying a new shopping or payment method, replacing outdated point-of-sale solutions, or deploying a microservices platform, but don’t have the resources to execute such a new initiative to your standards? Relying on trusted partners will help. Working together, partners and retailers can rely on their respective areas of expertise to create and deliver the right solutions that fit the needs of the business and satisfy their shoppers’ expectations. Those partnerships can even offer global support so retailers are confident that their operations will continue to run smoothly no matter where their business is.
Adapt and pivot quickly, and globally
Retail is changing as quickly as ever, and it’s imperative that your infrastructure is prepared for the next opportunity and ready to innovate. Retailers might not have in-house resources available near every physical location, so having global partners ready to help in a variety of regions and countries can mean the difference between a small manageable error at a few point-of-sale systems and an enterprise-wide disruption. It could also mean having the ability to make changes quicker or making changes quickly to prevent missing out on having a competitive edge because your existing infrastructure might not be able to give you the ability to innovate and keep up with customers’ needs.
Get the right experts involved
Having a variety of technology partners can help you maintain and grow your retail business. Channel Sales Partners (CSP’s), authorized technology distributors and resellers, can connect technology providers with businesses that are looking to improve their retail infrastructure. Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHV’s) develop innovative solutions for the marketplace using another provider’s solution. And Service Partners, which influence and guide customer decisions, can support retailers with consulting, implementation, warranty, maintenance services and more. With any of these types of partners, you can be sure that you have the highest level of expertise working on your initiatives, without having to rely as heavily on internal labor.
Partnerships can give retailers the support they need to thrive. And by building strong partner relationships, you can deliver the best solutions that transform your retail business today and be equipped to deliver great experiences in the future. Toshiba’s Together Commerce Alliance program is a strategic partnership program for companies to influence, market, sell and support Toshiba’s solutions and services portfolio. And since Toshiba is a partner-driven business focused on the retailer, we focus on the collective success that is achieved by working together closely. Interested in learning more about how our partnerships deliver results for retailers or are interested in becoming a strategic partner? Click here to learn more.
