The Key to Retail Multi-Cloud Management is AI in the Network, All the Way to the Edge

28
March, 2023
Author: ConnX Marketing

The use of cloud technologies in the retail industry has never been more dynamic and promising. Very few enterprises today rely on a single cloud and instead choose cloud consumption based on the applications they are using and how their digitally transformed networks are designed. This is especially true for highly distributed retail companies with hundreds or thousands of physical locations and for those who are increasingly blending the online and in-store customer experience.

Beyond the customer experience, internal operations and external supply chain relationships are also driving the migration to the cloud for all the obvious benefits: less capex required, more flexibility, more data analytics made possible across the business, and the ability to manage what is happening at the edge of the network with increasingly intelligent sensing.

Imagine a simple, secure, and intelligent way to connect.

Imagine if it were easier to take advantage of all that multi-cloud has to offer. Imagine if retailers could rest assured that data and assets were securely protected. Imagine what those retailers could do with reliable and fast connections that are easily managed. Imagine how agile and innovative those retailers will be with solutions that create transformative experiences for their customers, employees, vendors, partners, and supply chain participants.

Retailers are expanding to the cloud to accelerate building the next generation of digital experiences. But optimizing multi-cloud environments is complex.

This new reality is a highly distributed environment, and that creates a new set of challenges. Organizations are required to manage a set of variables (users, apps, data, devices) that are constantly changing. IT architectures must be reinvented for the realities of this next-generation digital world.

By bringing together application management, security, and networking to optimize your multi-cloud environment, ConnX brings consistency across all your domains: on-premises (retail stores) and public cloud/software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers (for in-store and online applications).

With richer features and deeper integration, ConnX helps retailers create seamless experiences and customized solutions. Our large retail enterprise customers are able to adapt and innovate faster in this increasingly complex multi-cloud world. With the right connections, your teams can increase efficiency and agility by driving secure, consistent, and production-grade user experiences across your on-premises environments and into the cloud.

By simplifying how they connect, protect, and consume clouds, retailers optimize the benefits multi-cloud world.

ConnX has deep experience in modernizing retail infrastructure, scalable for various environments across a multi-cloud world. With the right data analytics, our retail customers are using data to personalize the shopper’s journey and to create interactive platforms that increase engagement.

ConnX multi-cloud retail solutions include real-time data generated on the network itself, all the way to the edge, with intelligence actively captured from every connected device. Because our AI SD-WAN platform comes with Active Assurance, the quality of every session and interaction is guaranteed.

How are our retail customers benefiting?

They are:

  • Improving customer experiences with customer insights, interactive signage, mobile self-checkout, and mobile engagement.
  • Increasing associate productivity with mobile point of sale (POS) and streamlined fulfillment.
  • Increasing brand security with loss prevention, threat defense, and monitoring of assets.
  • Increasing visibility across the entire retail value chain, including the supply chain, reduce stock-outs, optimize inventory levels, and capture real-time location data on people and assets.
  • Increasingly choosing best-of-breed applications irrespective of the cloud on which they are hosted.
  • Deploying capabilities securely and rapidly over broad geographies.
  • Ensuring applications are stable and available to customers and associates in-store and beyond.
  • Connecting stores and other locations securely and reliably.
  • Simplifying the management of applications irrespective of which platform on which they are hosted.
  • Deploying applications and operational capabilities that enable cross-platform management and connectivity.
  • Ensuring secure and reliable connectivity to cloud-based resources.
  • Deploying a secure, flexible, resilient, and scalable network between the stores, corporate locations, and the cloud

The bottom line improves with every operational improvement.

With the right multi-cloud strategy, AI SD-WAN, and advanced edge connectivity, our retail customers are reducing operational costs, managing resources and applications without overspending on unused cloud resources, and are simplifying management and integration of apps to provide more comprehensive business value.

Please contact me to learn more and get started on the path to a more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective multi-cloud infrastructure that keeps your retail business vibrant, competitive, and ready for future innovation.

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