The retail industry exemplifies the maxim, change is constant. Still, the approach of the industry towards emerging technology of cloud computing is somewhat baffling. Cloud computing, a paradigm shift after the client-server model break-through of the eighties, is starting to show up in every other business. Curious, retailing industry is clearly lagging behind. It happens when the practical applications of the technology can do wonders to the industry. The word 'cloud' in cloud computing is actually a metaphor used for internet. Using internet would have robbed the concept of its novelty.
Although everyone is familiar with information sharing through internet and worldwide web, performing all the operations of computing through the internet is not so familiar. Cloud computing exactly does the same. It shares information, software - applications and operating system - and infrastructure - hardware like servers and storage units - using internet. A revolutionary cloud computing model can avail high power computing to the customers who need to have only typical input/output infrastructure.
Software industry giants have already started providing their services on cloud. CRM of salesforce.com, office applications from Microsoft and Google and IBM enterprise solutions have already become popular. Sadly, retailing - one of the largest sectors of the economy - has not yet begun its experiences with cloud computing.
In the context of retail industry, cloud computing is particularly efficient in collection and analyses of huge volumes of sales data and in real time inventory management. In retailing, points of sales generate large amounts of data each day. The sales data can be obtained through loyalty cards and discount coupons also. Most low and medium level retailers do not have the necessary resources to capture or utilize such enormous amounts of data. Cloud provider in retail can collect such data from sophisticated server networks connected to the supply chain to independent cash registers at family owned small stores and store it for the retailer. Such stored data may be accessed from anywhere, provided internet is accessible.
A cloud computing provider can track performance of products in comparison to previous time periods. The cloud provider can identify the trend and seasonality component of each product, brand or category and identify and monitor the performance. Then it can provide analytical results to the retailers. The provider of the service can serve many retailers at the same time, without making each retailer do it individually for themselves.
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