Technological and communicative consistency: the mobile app for retail

Friday, 08 January 2021 13:00

In the process that retailers put in place to gain the trust of their customers, the mobile app can certainly be considered the primary supporting channel.

It is perhaps unnecessary to remember how much the use of mobile has become an integral part of the daily life of all of us. The ease of use of mobile compared to desktop applications has succeeded in bringing users of all age groups to the tool, independently of their level of technical knowledge.
A research by Osservatorio.net published last March shows that in 2021 smartphones will become the first channel for online purchases, with 51% penetration in the Food&Grocery sector.
The recommendation when starting a Mobile App project is to consider the entire physical and digital communication context within which the brand presents itself and not to develop an app separately from the rest of the ICT systems.

In fact, this channel must respect the criterion of consistency and be in total coherence with all the other touch points that the brand displays, both in store and online.

Consistency is to be achieved from a technological point of view: customer services are digitalized and included within the App that, integrates them into the entire ecosystem as a new front-end, shares the customer's story with all the other tools.
Technological consistency is strongly connected to the structural choices that the retailer makes for the management of its database. A unified cloud-based platform allows managing, in a stable way, a single view of the customer and in a flexible way the different contact points, in order to map all the possible interaction and purchase journey.

Consistency is also achieved with a work of graphic and verbal alignment. Colors, icons, ideograms, words and messages that are used in the classic digital or paper flyer, on the website, on displays and totems in stores, must be take up and reinterpreted in a specific key for the mobile tool, within a user experience that is unique for that tool.

Once the technological and communicative consistency is achieved for everything related to the database and digital services shared with other channels, it is possible to provide a personalized experience to customers with services useful for their purchases shopping lists, product information, prize catalog, coupons and promotions, dematerialized card with account statement and digital receipt.

Then expand the portfolio with additional features, making the most of those potentialities that, due to the specific characteristics of the mobile medium, make the mobile app a unique and indispensable tool.

• Geolocation, to guide customers to the store but also, inside the point of sale, to the product.
• Proximity Marketing, to communicate to your customers when they are near specific purchase areas or perform a specific action.
• Scanning of barcodes, QR codes and tags for augmented reality, with the smartphone camera.
• Gamification related to reaching scalable goals and objectives to drive engagement and purchases.

To complete the purchase process, the mobile app is certainly the ideal channel to integrate the digital payment tools that the retailer has enabled on its circuits. Automating the checkout phase is probably the most ambitious process for most brands. Once the customer has established trust and familiarity with the mobile app, a tool that they use and from which they receive benefits, they will look for nothing more than to be able to set up their payment tools there as well. A real digital wallet where not only credit cards but also gift cards and other forms of electronic wallets can be stored.

Konvergence has developed KWallet, the Mobile App for Retail, modular, customized and integrated within the existing ICT ecosystem.

Contact us for all the details!

Compliance with best practices to minimize risk to information security.

Friday, 18 September 2020 09:39

Recently Konvergence achieved an important goal with ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification.

This international standard gives guidelines for the creation of an Information Security Management System (ISMS).

The aim is to implement and organize information security policies by defining a system for the management, monitoring, control of business processes to ensure high levels of confidentiality, integrity and accessibility of information. The field of application is in the core business of Konvergence: design and development of software and related IT services in the retail sector.

Achieving certification has become a strategic goal for Konvergence to increase the protection and security of managed information and improve corporate governance.

The certification process, which started in 2019, has involved several professionals with multidisciplinary skills, proactively collaborated in the implementation of the ISMS. The process approach adopted has enabled Konvergence's ISMS to be established, implemented, monitored, reviewed, managed and improved.

Bureau Veritas, an independent certification organization, has sent auditors to our headquarters to verify the compliance of the procedures implemented.

Thanks to this certification, Konvergence has developed a conscious focus on information security risks, allowing a clear assignment of responsibilities for information security.

Konvergence thus continues to consolidate one of its most important assets: security, a decisive advantage for retail operators who entrust their systems to a technology provider.

Guerino di Giacomo, Head of Development and Projects at Konvergence says: "Undertaking the ISO 27001 certification process has brought several advantages at an organizational level: it has consolidated the global management of risks related to information and systems security, allowed a clear definition and implementation of suitable objectives for security interventions, allowing the constant monitoring of risk areas. In addition, the adoption of best practices delineated by the certification confirms Konvergence's commitment to fulfill its obligations to all stakeholders that daily enter into contracts with our company in order to ensure the necessary levels of security to protect systems, assets and data".

Konvergence will maintain its commitment to the future by continuously improving processes and practices to protect and manage data.

Konvergence is now a Toshiba Commerce Solutions Partner

Friday, 10 January 2020 16:29

Toshiba Commerce is a global leader in the retail technologies market and has created a partnership program where companies with diversified capabilities can be in contact, discuss and cooperate with the aim of more widely satisfy retailer's needs.

This partnership program is called Together Commerce Alliance and makes community between Toshiba, associated ISV (Independent Software Vendors) and associated IHV (Independent Hardware Vendors). The program Together Commerce Alliance includes a set of business and marketing activities, training, products and solutions certifications all focused on the retail market. The organization provides growing and awards with a range of scalable levels based on the company's performance.

Konvergence became Toshiba Commerce Alliance few years ago and recently has reached first the Gold Partner level and then the Solution Partner level as an ISV.
Are the software solutions that have been selected by TGCS as cutting edges and innovatives and they are giong to be part of the proposal recommended for the entire Together Commerce Alliance even oveseas.

The core solutions that TGCS is promoting are strenghts for retailers with customer engagement and loyalty strategies:

• The Enriched Shopping, includes Digital Signage, Mobile andOmnichannel.
• The Actionable Insights, for data-driven marketing data-driven enabled by loyalty and promotions systems for a much more personalized customer experience.
• The Frictionless Checkout, for payment process optimization, fast and smart checkout.

Konvergence's platforms are perfectly in line with this key points: Mobile Marketing, Marketing Automation and Loyalty, Electronic payments. They come out also from the knowledge and market vision that the Together Commerce Alliance program put at the partners disposal, sharing with them the possibility to better look at the future and follow the best retail market trends.

Contact us to discover more!

 

We are going to talk about Smart Retail at Lumi expo 2019

Wednesday, 06 November 2019 14:03 System integration, IoT, technological innovation for the construction of Smart environments at the service of the citizen and the consumer are the main themes of the LUMI Expo 2019 event which will take place on 21st and 22nd November at Bologna Fiere.

We will be there and we will participate in the Talk Show "Technological Convergence, AV, IoT and Smart Data in people's everyday life experience", sharing our point of view together with other industry experts.

It will be a moment of aggregation and comparison to which we invite everyone to participate.

“LUMI expresses the supply chain of the system integration market. Represents the ecosystem that sees human at the center, from the closed space in which he works and lives (SMART BUILDING), to the built space, in which the person moves and interacts with the community (SMART CITY), up to the built landscape, where the individual becomes collective (SMART LAND). "

Retail is an integral part of this ecosystem and must be able to take advantage from the technological opportunities offering to its customers services and digital content in omnichannel mode.

The digital signage in the store is a valuable point of contact to give concrete meaning to the expectations that the customer has created online. It is necessary to reflect on how to best integrate digital content in the store based on business objectives and to make the shopping experience engaging and memorable.

You can find additional info and the free registration form HERE