Achieving Retail Performance Excellence

When we think about performance excellence, it’s easy to think of it as an abstract concept that sounds nice, but is more of a buzzword that’s thrown around at meetings. However, the Baldrige Glossary provides a clear definition of the term, including three business outcomes for achieving performance excellence. In this blog post, we’ll explore these three outcomes.

1. “Delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to organizational sustainability”

If you want to ensure that your business continues to thrive as customer habits and tastes change, you need to demonstrate sustained value. This means creating an omnichannel buying experience that takes your retail business wherever your customers are, whether that’s in-store, on a mobile device, or at home on a computer. To support these different channels, you need a 360-degree view of your customer that helps you design a practical buying experience.

ERP platforms like Microsoft Dynamics 365 are powerful tools that give retailers a unified view of their customers by collecting and storing data received during the sales process or via external sources like social media. It can also be integrated with your CRM system to empower your employees with readily available customer information to support them throughout the customer lifecycle. Combining this information with your other business data helps you discover opportunities for improving your product, buying experience, overall customer engagement, and profitability.

2. “Improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities”

To improve employee productivity, they need tools that eliminate unnecessary stressors and mundane tasks from their work routine. Microsoft Dynamics 365 automates several processes across your organization’s business functions, reducing employees' need for manual sharing and data entry, and saving them hours of repetitive work each week. Dynamics 365 can be enhanced with machine learning and BI, which can further reduce the number of tasks that require employee attention. Integrating key tasks within a centralized dashboard also improves communication, productivity, and transparency across your retail business.

3. "Organizational and personal learning"

The improvements mentioned above can produce a wealth of data for organizational analysis. Microsoft Dynamics 365 streamlines your digital business processes and converts data into usable information that drives decision-making. Additionally, it also facilitates employee growth by providing portals for training and resources, identifying gaps in employee skills, and allowing employees to effectively communicate where they feel they need the most support for success and satisfaction.

Performance excellence can pave the way for a more effective and profitable retail business. By keeping these guidelines and results in mind, retailers can detect sources of inefficiency and make changes that have an overarching positive impact throughout their organization. ERP platforms can help bridge process gaps and eliminate information silos in businesses to help different departments align their objectives and energies.

Choosing the right ERP partner to implement or enhance your ERP solution is essential for ensuring that it becomes a core operational asset with minimal disruption. Systems offers vast experience in ERP implementation for retailers. Get in touch with us to discover the right ERP platform for you.