ATLANTA, November 5, 2024 – NCR Voyix Corporation (NYSE: VYX), a leading global provider of digital commerce solutions for the retail and restaurant industries, has published key findings from its first survey of grocery retail IT leaders on edge technology.
NCR Voyix partnered with Censuswide Research, an international market research consultancy, to better understand the adoption of edge technology among the IT teams of large US and European grocers. The report, Grocery Store IT: The Edge Revolution, explores how these technology leaders are under increasing pressure to keep up with customer expectations. These teams are often held back by inefficient legacy systems that make deploying and updating in-store applications complex and expensive.
Less and Better Tech is More
Most IT leaders in the US grocery retail sector said they must make regular maintenance changes to their in-store tech stack an average of 86 times a year. Alarmingly, nearly 40% said these updates can take from two weeks to six months to populate across their entire store network. Given the high frequency of updates, there aren’t enough days in the year to execute them all promptly. To consolidate workflow, reduce outages, and increase security, IT teams often bundle changes. This practice, however, prolongs the time needed to achieve a successful all-store rollout.
European counterparts face the same challenges, making maintenance changes an average of 59 times annually, with one-third reporting delays of two weeks to six months.
“An edge architecture is critical to operating at web speed. It enables rapid, highly distributed changes while ensuring resilience, giving retailers the agility and scale needed to run their stores like digital channels," said Eric Schoch, Executive Vice President and President of Retail at NCR Voyix.
Edging Toward More Organized, Modern Architecture
Despite growing interest in modernizing architecture, 93% of US and 85% of European respondents admit their organizations lack a fully implemented retail edge plan. Many find themselves held back in their transformation journey by factors including data privacy and compliance concerns (US: 56%, Europe: 45%), the need to integrate with existing IT systems and legacy architecture (US: 47%, Europe: 40%) and capital costs and ROI justification (US: 45%, Europe 41%).
Edge architecture is at the top of US retailers’ wish lists. Nearly 70% of grocery retail IT leaders expect most of their in-store software to become cloud-native microservices running in containerized environments in the next 1-5 years. In Europe, 57% of respondents expect to follow a similar path.
Legacy Architecture Presents Costly Challenges
All respondents have experienced at least one issue when implementing software updates across touchpoints.
The most common issues US IT teams face:
· 38% say bugs and glitches affect performance of touchpoints after software updates
· 35% say older devices don’t support the latest software updates and result in hardware upgrades
· 35% struggle to quickly revert to previous software versions when disruptions occur
The most common issues European IT teams face:
· 34% say new security vulnerabilities requiring immediate patches and heightened monitoring
· 33% experience data synchronization issues between touchpoints and the central database
· 29% report customer complaints caused by IT downtime
Challenges and issues lead to revenue loss, decreased customer loyalty and, if a security breach should occur, significant reputational damage, fines and litigation. Implementing a retail edge architecture is a powerful way to mitigate these risks while enhancing operational efficiency.
“To remain competitive, grocery stores need to swiftly and cost-effectively upgrade their technology across all locations,” said Schoch. “Implementing edge architecture to deploy and manage microservices and virtual machines throughout the store is now a top priority and at the forefront of retail technology strategies. Retailers who do not adapt soon will find themselves burdened with outdated legacy systems.”
About Grocery Store IT: The Edge Revolution
NCR Voyix partnered with Census wide Research to explore attitudes toward the edge approach to retail application management. Responses are comprised of 100 US and 201 European senior IT decision makers with large store estates within the grocery retail market.
About NCR Voyix
NCR Voyix Corporation (NYSE: VYX) is a leading global provider of digital commerce solutions for the retail and restaurant industries. NCR Voyix transforms retail stores and restaurant systems through experiences with comprehensive, platform-led SaaS and services capabilities. NCR Voyix is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with customers in more than 30 countries across the globe.
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