Critical connectivity for retail
Smart Mobile Data Case Study
Industry
Retail
Location
United Kingdom
Solution
CompleteConnect and FlexConnect
Setting the scene
Employing around three million people, the retail sector is the UK’s largest private sector employer. The total value of UK retail sales in 2022 was over £400 billion.
Technology is transforming the retail sector. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers must harness the power of technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience and compete with online businesses. Data, algorithms and automation are driving new, highly efficient, agile business models designed to respond to changing consumer demand.
Reliable connectivity is at the heart of this business transformation. Customers expect to be able to stay connected when shopping and good connectivity is essential as we see further integration of the physical and virtual retail experience. Without it, retail businesses will not thrive and may struggle to survive.
The challenge
With customers ranging from the UK’s biggest coffee shop brands to clothing chains and warehouse wholesalers, the partner needed a whole suite of retail connectivity solutions.
Always-on connectivity is critical to retail businesses in today’s technology-driven world. Shops can’t afford to lose connectivity for even a few minutes (broadband outages cost the UK £5 billion in 2020 alone). Downtime isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s totally disabling, making it impossible to process transactions, manage stock and operate security systems.
Cashless transactions have become the default option for many consumers, particularly the younger generation. Therefore, ePOS is a must.
Stores need effective CCTV to protect both staff and stock.
Short-term connectivity is also required for pop-up shops, as well as festivals and other events, often in hard-to-reach locations. In these situations, fixed-line broadband is simply not a viable option.
The Solution
Smart Mobile Data can deliver custom mobile data solutions for primary connectivity, rapid and remote deployments, and outage protection.
The partner delivered tailored connectivity to each of their retail customers, giving them:
- multi-network 4G SIMs for their electronic point-of-sale handsets,
- rapid deployment 4G for pop-up stores and remote sites, with un-steered SIMs that make planning easy,
- private static IPs and private APNs for managing store CCTV suites and individual cameras,
- IoT connectivity for monitoring and predictive maintenance in vending machines,
- on-demand 4G backup that seamlessly kicks in during broadband outages.
All this was provided on flexible contracts that protect the customer from overages and adjust to their usage, enabling them to deal with spikes in demand.
For simple account management, the partner has access to a user-friendly portal where they have fingertip control over each customer’s Smart Mobile Data account.
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The results
In total, our connectivity solutions won the partner £2 million in revenue from these retail opportunities.
Now their retail customers can focus on running their stores and delivering an excellent customer experience, without constantly worrying about connectivity delays, outages or overages.
- £2 million in revenue
- Multi-network 4G SIMs, private static IPs and private APNs
- Reliable IoT connectivity
Unleash the power of IoT
Discover more about our Smart Mobile Data product portfolio and the market opportunity for Channel partners.
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