Businesses who have built a strong digital foundation are in a better position to weather change – we saw that when COVID-19 brought a few years of digital investment in a few months and are still seeing it now.

Retailers are playing offense and defense every single day. Offense is innovation, asking questions like how do I meet the ever-changing needs of my customers? How do I reimagine my brick-and-mortar operations? How do I deliver experiences that exceed customers’ expectations? How do I get a 360 Degree view of my customers? How do I reinvent my business model to accelerate to the new normal? If there is one thing to be learned following COVID-19, it’s that agility is the name of the game.

All the way from a single view of a customer, search to interaction, payment/transaction and pick-up/delivery options, engaging from customers across all touchpoints while creating a unique customer experience. The band aid for omnichannel has been ripped off and we saw an explosion of buying online and picking up in store during COVID-19. Mastercard research showed that 79% of consumers were using contactless payments citing safety and cleanliness as the key drivers whilst recent McKinsey research showed that 10-15% of consumers expect to buy all of their purchases for discretionary and non-essential goods online after COVID-19.

At the same time, retailers are playing defense – unlocking data insights and eliminating silos within organization, ensuring stores are safe and efficient, as well as the health and safety of your employees.

Join Microsoft and Industry leaders in this interactive discussion on how you can use technology to reimagine how you know your customers, empower your employees, optimize your supply chain and operations, and create a new world of innovative products and services through the power of our intelligent cloud and business stack.