IDC 2014 World Wide Retail Predictions: Doing More And Moving Beyond Doing: Retail Omni-Channel Reinvention

By Leslie Hand, IDC Retail Insights Research Director

IDC Retail Insights 2014 Predictions mark the 5th anniversary of "omni-channel", a term we coined and a concept we first described in our 2009 IDC Retail Insights Predictions. This year's report continues to discuss the drivers, challenges, technology investments and personnel shifts that are transforming retail in response to the omni-channel customer -the customer whose path to purchase is more complex than before, potentially shopping in online, mobile, catalog and store channels in parallel.

Omni-channel maturity levels vary significantly, and we have not been able to identify any retailer that believes they have achieved an ultimate "omni-channel" state. We would argue that a final state is probably elusive, but that most retailers are on some sort of transformational journey from a people, process technology perspective regardless of what word they use to describe it.

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