Focused on providing new strategies to optimize the value of IT in 2010, IDC Retail Insights unveiled its Top 10 Predictions for the retail industry.

The report explores several hot retail topics, including social commerce, mobility and how demand intelligence is driving inventory management. Leslie Hand, Research Director at IDC Retail Insights, expanded on these predictions with an exclusive interview for Retail TouchPoints.

Retail TouchPoints: Centered on a hot button in retail right now, one of the predictions compares traditional retailers to the Titanic, and the approaching iceberg is social commerce. How can retailers prepare for this? Do you anticipate a change to favor online retailers? Retail giants with bigger customer bases?

Leslie Hand: Social networks are an unprecedented opportunity for merchants – with over 1.3 billion existing accounts on the top-10 social networking sites.

Concept:
The couponing industry is moving into the digital age as numerous Web, mobile, and device-oriented solutions are now in place to deliver digital content. The problem is there is not an industry standard solution for integrating digital content with retailer point of sale (POS) systems. Designed to remedy the problem retailers have dealing with numerous integration points, which has potential to  deter consumers, MDot Network is an open platform that sits between the hundreds of companies producing digital content and the retailer’s POS. MDot’s solution is designed to provide a single point of integration that connects the coupon issuers to the retailers and the retailers' clearing house.

Team:
Founder and CEO Bill Catania, who came up with the original concept, heads Erie, PA-based MDot Network. Catania has direct experience in new business start-ups through his Motorsports/e-Commerce based business RaceFan, Inc., an Internet-based motor sports marketing venture.

Mike Kavis, CTO, and Greg Rapp, VP of Engineering, architected the transaction processing engine and the open platform for eOffers. Kavis and Rapp both have over 20 years of IT experience and are both former Chief Architects at Catalina Marketing, with a combined 40+ years of retail and loyalty marketing experience.

By Doug Stephens, President, Retail Prophet

I had coffee recently with a friend who works in the mobile technology sector. We were talking about how much progress had taken place in the mobile industry in the last six months, when he made a comment that really struck me. He said ”Six months is a really long time these days.” and it occurred to me how true that is. Where we used to measure change in business by annual events and fiscal results – we now do so monthly and in some cases even weekly!  Things are changing that quickly.

So, rather than add to the parade of annual prognostications, I’ve opted to share what I consider to be a few big ideas that will heavily influence retail over the next 5-10 years. Hopefully by stepping back a little farther, we can gain a better perspective on the events of 2010 and beyond as they unfold.

The digital signage market reached $3.9 billion in total revenue in 2009 and is expected to continue to grow at a rate of 20% annually, according to IMS Research. Retail is a primary component of the digital signage market, and companies such as Microsoft and Intel are striving to become a leader in this expanding arena.

To capitalize on this growing marketplace, Microsoft Corp. announced a strategic alliance with Intel Corp. to deliver a platform optimized for the digital signage industry. As a validated platform, the Windows 7-based Windows Embedded Standard 2011 operating system powered by 2010 Intel Core microarchitecture.

The new product is a 7-foot-6-inch multi-user, multi-touch Intel Intelligent Digital Signage Concept that features a virtual brick-and-mortar store setting where customers can use the multi-touch holographic screen to explore merchandise, find out about promotions, submit feedback on products, read customer reviews, view past purchasing histories and share what they have discovered with their friends via social media and mobile phone integration.