Assignment

how is retail transforming and what is Inter-mediation?

RETAIL TRANSFORMING:
New technologies and new ways to connect with consumers are transforming the retail sector. it is a sea change, from fundamentally around how a customers buy to how stores operate, to how employees work with customers. Recent advances in technology such as cloud, artificial intelligence and data management have had a massive effect on the retail sector. Businesses today have the opportunity to streamline processes and become faster, more efficient and ultimately better than ever before. The challenge this presents retailers is how to keep up with this rapid change and avoid being left behind. To meet to these changes, retailers must digitally transform their business. This transformation includes how stores are using digital technology to revolutionize the in-store experience, as well as reshaping everything from finding a local store to paying for goods without even queuing up. The need for quick digital transformation has put retailers in the eye of a unique storm: having to balance an increasingly complex front-end customer-facing set of activities against the back-end capabilities of retail technology.

INTER MEDIATION:
The intermediary or third party technological companies play a very important role in the retail transformation of businesses, they provide the technology and software(Applications) necessary for the business to help them transform and go from traditional retailing to digitally transformed retailing. a good example of it would be Ali Baba the company. In china, Ali Baba has helped the traditional retailing models adapt to the digital world. one of the examples would be buying cars through the auto vending machine. The vending machine allows the consumer to browse through different(brand/model) cars and select the one they wanna test drive and experience in and out the car first then talk to the salesperson(no sales pressure).