The increased deployment of the new technologies like the smart mobile devices and the social network has a major impact on the in-store technological solutions, which leads to different opportunities and challenges for the retailers. The line between the online and the physical channels is still blurred but a new approach to channel integration is seen to be emerging with omnichannel that aims to deliver a seamless customer experience which is regardless of the channel. The results focus on the discussions of information technology in retail and the new business models, future roles of the traditional stores with economic advancements. The key issues are related to the need of channel integration with impact of the mobile technologies and the growth of the role of social media (Foye, 2017). There is a need to respond to the diversified customer requirements with balance between personalization and privacy with supply chain redesigning.
Harvey Norman was established by Gerry Harvey and Ian Norman in 1982, which is one of the best company to focus on the franchising, property and the other retail business. The operations are set under the franchise system and then delivering the retail offerings to the customer. The product range is found to be wider and the advancement of the technology is with the market leadership that helps in achieving the success in organization (Duvall, 2018). Apart from this, the company is working on selling the products of different categories like the smaller appliances, electrical goods, flooring and the carpets, with bedding, furniture and other communications. The culture is multifaceted with the difficulty to describe about the orientation for the franchise system. There are specific proportions of the earnings and the revenue which is generally spent on the local community.
According to Blázquez M. (2014), the retail sector comes under the competitive category where there are operations based on how one is dominated by the multichannel retailers. The internet has transformed and will continue to do so with retail sectors, in the upcoming times. There are more retailers who are moving into this for better profitability. Harvey Norman is trying to adopt to the internet technologies, where it has been working on adoption Internet of Things, which could be helpful for the addition of solutions from the quantifying technology. The company has been working on the management of the products and the services for the residential and other projects which are related to commercialized building (Inman et al., 2017). To bridge the gap between the channels, the different technologies like the augmented reality, 3D virtual models have been introduced in the retail sector and have been changing the retail sector. Harvey Norman is also working on improving the store experiences which is the key to generate value perceptions in retailing. The technology is the part for the in-store which is used for improving the experiences and meeting the customer expectations. The technology can create an attractive environment with making the shopping experience engaging and memorable as well. The technologies like store ordering, display screens have been introduced to create a new merchandise layout for the products with convenience to buy in-store.
The introduction of IoT has been able to redesign the factory workflow and improved the tracking of materials with optimizing the cost of distribution. The examples are related to how UPS is working on IoT enabled fleet tracking technologies which leads to cutting the costs and improving the supply efficiencies as well. The retail site intelligence is one of the complete retail platform for the video analytics (Lee et al., 2015). It has been seen that IoT is able to bring a change with intelligent building solution for the real time evaluation of environmental and risks factors that are managed through measuring the efficiency of the different resources like energy. The quantifying and establishing a demonstration facility helps in providing the staff with better training and the support in engineering sector. The company is able to adapt the technology with gaining momentum in the technological and competitive pressures to push the firms with adopting the same. IoT focus on cost benefit analysis which is of a major interest and the higher investment costs allows to assess the IoT induced opportunities with resources that are seen to be spent judiciously (Barrett et al., 2015).
With the increased deployment of the new technologies, there are omnichannel retailing which is related to IT and has been working on perceiving it as an evolution of the multichannel (Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson, 2014). The mobile and social media are even gaming that is added to the traditional online and physical channels. They are able to provide a seamless and unified experience to the customer. There are changes which are mainly driven by the new technologies like the mobile payments, e-coupons and the e-valets that help them with reduced costs and allowing personalization and price optimization. Harvey Norman is working on improving in IT sector where they are connected to the mobile customers who can access the information and buy anything (Moorhouse et al., 2018).
The retailing through IT has brought the change with approaches to digital and specific mobile channels. The channels are used for the purchasing process and it is impossible for the companies to control this usage. The interactive channels and entertainment environment companies are adopting the customer-to-customer interactions to social media with peer-to-peer communication (Verhoef et al., 2015). It is important to focus on the different research channels which are based on working with econometric models and the common research approaches which involves the different survey data and the experiments. The technology has a major effect on the customer purchasing behavior and the mobile channel usage is affecting the shopping behavior across the different channels at a higher level. The multi-channel retailing to omni-channel has brought the major development that is affecting on how the retailers can operate.
With the changing technology, IoT has been working on the integrated model with exploring driving factors of individual willingness to use IoT from the perspectives of the technology and social context. IoT has been able to bring the change in designing, architecture and implementation sector from the technical standpoint (Gao & Bai, 2014). It has been able to take hold of the applications which are important for the internet to communicate. The IoT technologies are effective for the supply chain management, tracking of the retail and warehouse management. The technology, then tends to provide the greater efficiencies in different industries with benefits to the consumers which are substantial (Pantano et al., 2017). Harvey Norman is working on improving the approach to its customer through proper training of the employees and implementing the new technologies so that they are able to keep themselves up-to-date in the market.
Conclusion
The focus of the company can be to provide a proper contribution to understand the role of information technology in retailing. Here, the increased use of the mobile devices and the social network has made the traditional online-physical channel obsolete. The changes are seen with emerging business models for omnichannel (Priporas et al., 2017). The cross-channel integration can be achieved where the retailers aim to implement the strategy which needs to focus on the channels, balancing the privacy and the customization process in an effective manner.
Harvey Norman can also work on planning to become the major IoT reseller, as IT sector has a major impact on its retail stores. The company can focus on improving generalizability with social conformity and the focusing on the potentially biased responses. It is important for the company to work on the product availability, latest software updates and manage the delivery options of its products to the customers in an effective manner. The support is mainly by the interactive screens where the customers should be engaged as well. The model of pull-order system from product manufacturers, could also be an effective option for the company.
References
Barrett, M., Davidson, E., Prabhu, J. and Vargo, S.L., 2015. Service innovation in the digital age: key contributions and future directions. MIS quarterly, 39(1), pp.135-154.
Blázquez, M., 2014. Fashion shopping in multichannel retail: The role of technology in enhancing the customer experience. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), pp.97-116.
Duvall T., 2018. Future of retail in Australia. Available at:<https://home.kpmg.com/au/en/home/insights/2018/04/bernard-salt-next-5-years-retail-future-australia.html>
Foye B. 2017, Harvey Norman adds IoT firepower to commercial business with Quantify Technology partnership Available at:<https://www.crn.com.au/news/harvey-norman-adds-iot-firepower-to-commercial-business-with-quantify-technology-partnership-474550>
Gao, L. and Bai, X., 2014. A unified perspective on the factors influencing consumer acceptance of internet of things technology. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 26(2), pp.211-231.
Inman, J.J. and Nikolova, H., 2017. Shopper-facing retail technology: a retailer adoption decision framework incorporating shopper attitudes and privacy concerns. Journal of Retailing, 93(1), pp.7-28.
Lee, I. and Lee, K., 2015. The Internet of Things (IoT): Applications, investments, and challenges for enterprises. Business Horizons, 58(4), pp.431-440.
Moorhouse, N., tom Dieck, M.C. and Jung, T., 2018. Technological innovations transforming the consumer retail experience: a review of literature. In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (pp. 133-143). Springer, Cham.
Pantano, E., Priporas, C.V., Sorace, S. and Iazzolino, G., 2017. Does innovation-orientation lead to retail industry growth? Empirical evidence from patent analysis. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 34, pp.88-94.
Piotrowicz, W. and Cuthbertson, R., 2014. Introduction to the special issue information technology in retail: Toward omnichannel retailing. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), pp.5-16.
Priporas, C.V., Stylos, N. and Fotiadis, A.K., 2017. Generation Z consumers’ expectations of interactions in smart retailing: A future agenda. Computers in Human Behavior, 77, pp.374-381.
Verhoef, P.C., Kannan, P.K. and Inman, J.J., 2015. From multi-channel retailing to omni-channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of retailing, 91(2), pp.174-181.
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