The retail industry, since time immemorial, has been an intensely competitive arena. From supermarkets and departmental stores to specialty stores, warehouse stores, e-commerce stores, franchises and malls, the retail market has flourished constantly. However, considering the recent unprecedented times that drove a majority of businesses to remote working, the retail businesses, especially the small and medium-sized ones have been severely impacted by this change.
Retailers faced major store management and business continuity challenges during the pandemic and incurred heavy losses. But now, as the restrictions bought in by the pandemic begin to ease out, the retail industry is preparing for its recovery with newer methods to keep the businesses rolling. Remote Access is one such method devised to support business continuity, even if the situation demands workplace flexibility. But what exactly does remote access mean and how do businesses achieve that, is the real question.
What is Remote Access?
Remote access is the ability of businesses to provide their employees with authorized access to their corporate network and resources, irrespective of their locations. This is a big deal for enterprises since corporate data is one of the biggest and most confidential assets of a company.
Remote access makes an enterprise’s confidential data accessible to employees even beyond office premises. Needless to say, it is crucial for businesses to secure and encrypt remote access to protect their sensitive data from accidental breaches. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) create an encrypted connection between the user’s device and the company’s server via the internet and are the most common way to secure remote access.
How Do Remote Access Benefit Retail Businesses?
Retailers can securely provide access to crucial product details, purchase orders and sensitive customer information to their employees anywhere in the world to ensure business continuity, even from remote locations. Remote Access is crucial for retail businesses as it helps in achieving;
- Better Collaboration
With remote access, on-field sales representatives can be easily equipped with the appropriate documents and information to fulfill the customer’s requests and queries on time. Sales executives are the customer-facing agents of every business, making it especially important for companies to furnish them with all the necessary product, service and purchase-related information.With remote access, sales executives can exchange product catalogs, purchase order details, customer contact details, order receipts, etc. over the air by accessing the company’s internal portal or connecting with the business’s network, remotely. With such instant collaboration, sales executives can leverage last-minute discussions with their seniors to make informed decisions and not lose out on sales or prospects.
- Improved Store Experiences
Retailers now are gearing up for the major remote working challenges that the pandemic presented. Store management involves several technologies such as digital signages to display advertisements, POS for easy payments, interactive kiosks for customer feedback and order placement, etc. All these devices are generally operated manually. However, with the right remote access tools, retail stores can leverage remote management of such custom-made and public-facing retail devices.
This not only helps retail businesses operate with a lower employee bandwidth but also enables employees to conduct the in-store operations remotely and provide minimal contact store experiences for customers. - Enhanced operational efficiencies
Managing store operations is a challenging task, especially in the post-pandemic world where rules and guidelines are changing frequently. Retail businesses are required to draw maximum operational efficiency and implement quick solutions to changing demands. Enabling your retail employees to operate from anywhere with secure remote access diminishes the need for on-site visits saving time and cost invested in travel.
Similarly, IT admins of retail businesses can leverage remote access to perform instant troubleshooting to prevent extended system downtime. This proves especially valuable for fixing device errors experienced by unattended devices or technical glitches experienced by store executives and ensures better customer service.
Considering the post-pandemic situation, where the corporate world is still coping with the aftermath of the pandemic with partial lockdown, guidelines for limited capacity and hybrid working, remote access does seem to be the saving grace that can help the retail businesses to stay ahead of the game in the present market. Modern-day MDM solutions like Scalefusion offer extensive remote management capabilities and are an efficient way to enable remote access to the employees.
Schedule a free live demo here – https://scalefusion.com/book-a-demo and get all your questions answered.
