19 July 2019

UK retailers are struggling to balance various customer demands with their own fundamental tech and IT security needs.

According to a survey of 150 retail professionals conducted by SD-WAN edge application and security services firm Cybera, retailers are well aware of the need to positively differentiate themselves, with 83% of respondents in the survey citing that delivering an enhanced in-store customer experience is very important.

The key to addressing all these new challenges is additional applications and services, the majority of which will rely on secure, stable, and scalable network technology.

However, nearly one quarter (23%) of the respondents said they have not introduced additional services to their stores in the past 12 months.

The survey, carried out in May at Retail Expo 2019, also found that the primary inhibitors included cost, followed by IT security concerns and a belief that their network would not support additional applications.

“Organisations and consumers continue to be affected by various data breaches that threaten to expose valuable private and financial information,” Hubert da Costa, vice president and general manager EMEA at Cybera, told Networking+. “Distributed enterprises with hundreds of small footprint locations, like convenience stores and other retail outlets, are particularly vulnerable. But the future of retail belongs to the retailer that offers an enhanced and differentiated customer experience.”

Da Costa added that technology and services that support and enforce well-planned business and security policies will play a major role in not only helping to protect companies and consumers from the risk of data breaches – “but will also enable them to deliver break-through apps and services quickly and easily that address customer experience demands”.

In addition, many enterprises said that the ever-evolving regulatory landscape, including GDPR, PCI, as well as the upcoming PSD2, was an added distraction.

Some 47% said they were concerned about new regulatory demands and admitted it was time to review their technology and processes. n