Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

186 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om F E ATUR E retailers to easily coordinate and manage store operations at scale from a central platform. “Business leaders can assign tasks to entire teams at all stores or selected stores, or to spe- cific individuals, and they can provide detailed instructions to ensure that jobs are completed correctly and on time,” explains Minbiole. “Employees can view their personalised task list in their Teams app and check off items when they are finished. Real-time analytics and report- ing provide managers with end-to-end visibility into team performance, allowing them to iden- tify opportunities for optimising operations and make more informed decisions.” Grocer Chedraui, which operates almost 300 stores across Mexico and the US states of California, Arizona and Nevada, implemented Tasks publishing when it migrated 40,000 asso- ciates to Teams at the start of the pandemic. Previously, task management, document collab- oration and communications took place in sepa- rate applications, but now managers use Tasks to set operational tasks, align store promotions and displays across multiple locations, and ensure employees have all the information they need to do their jobs. This has boosted productivity and operational efficiency. Retailers also use the new Teams Shifts fea- ture to streamline and automate staffing and schedule management via Teams. Swedish fur- niture company Ikea is already experimenting with Shifts at its flagship store in Stockholm as part of its recent implementation of Microsoft 365 and Teams. In the past, managers created paper schedules and pinned them to the office wall, then employees had to fill out different forms to request shift changes and leave, or call various colleagues if they were sick. Now, managers and employees can manage their workdays by using Teams Shifts on their smart- phones. Ikea has calculated that implementing Shifts could save SEK364,000 ($37,700) in the flagship store alone. “There has been a decade’s worth of transforma- tion in retail since the start of the pandemic, with retailers having to invest in tools such as Teams to improve frontline productivity and overcome the challenges of the pandemic and the shortage of workers,” says Minbiole. “The number of daily active Teams users has doubled since the start of the pandemic and almost trebled year over year. And now, with shoppers returning to stores, retailers are exploring how they can use digital technologies to automate stores, introduce new payment models, establish omnichannel retail, and more.” However, to enable such innovation, retail- ers must first implement a robust system for securely capturing and analysing customer and product data, advises Minbiole. “Data must be at the core of everything retailers do and, once they have the capabilities to collate and mine it for actionable insights, they can implement a myr- iad of different applications – such as Microsoft Teams, HoloLens, Dynamics 365 for Customer Service – to empower their employees and opti- mise operations. For example, with full access to customer data and the help of artificial intelli- gence (AI) and machine learning, retailers can quickly personalise customer interactions.” Designed to consolidate disparate data sources via a common data model, the new Microsoft Cloud for Retail platform helps retailers to unlock actionable insights for optimising