Enabling

Demand-Driven

Retailing

ROBUST NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE IS CRITICAL

TO SUPPORT NEW APPLICATIONS

AN RIS WHITE PAPER

Analysts and savvy retailers view demand-driven retailing as

a critical business initiative. According to AMR Research,

demand-driven retailing is a system of technologies and

processes that capture consumer behavior at each point of

interaction and then use this information to define products

and services that shape customer demand, while facilitating a

real-time, profitable response across a network of suppliers

and channels to meet that demand.

Retailers are undertaking major business process change

to get to that vision, defined in AMR s Demand-Driven

Retailing Is about More Than Retailers, July 19, 2006. That

work includes laying a foundation of tightly integrated soft-

ware applications that are capable of collecting, analyzing and

exchanging high volumes of data within the enterprise and

with trading partners. Proactive communication among peo-

ple is another essential element to achieving the high levels of

visibility and responsiveness necessary to attain the con-

sumer-centric ideals of demand-driven retailing.

None of that can happen without a robust, secure voice-

ready retail network infrastructure to transport the required

voice and data traffic. Already healthy volumes of data will

continue to multiply as retailers move closer to attaining col-

laborative, shared platforms accessible to authorized employ-

ees and partners. Add data-rich capabilities from RFID tag-

ging to the mix, and it s clear that bandwidth and security

requirements will explode.

Retailers must take the same care in building the

enabling infrastructure as they do in building their applica-

tion platforms. Demand-driven retailing and the increas-

ingly collaborative nature of doing business in the retail

supply chain must not be constrained by limitations to

retailers network infrastructure.

Retail spending is attributed to the fact that retail compa-

nies are dependent on telecommunications to accomplish core