Oracle Cloud Helps Prada Group Elevate CX
Oracle is deploying its cloud-based retail solutions at the Prada Group, the Italian luxury fashion house specializing in leather handbags, shoes, ready-to-wear, and fashion accessories.
Through the mobile deployment of Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service (POS) and Oracle Retail Customer Engagement Cloud Service, Prada can collect customer preferences and purchase habits as it embarks on a journey to combine its physical and digital offerings. The brand wishes to know its customers better, using data to formulate strategies aimed at delivering a personalized experience and increased loyalty.
“A global player like the Prada Group takes the time to understand the data around its customers, including attributes, behavior, and preferences,” says Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Retail. “The marriage of planning and analytics with the customer experience technology allows a retailer to predict, personalize, and deliver on its brand promise. We are delighted to celebrate the successful deployment of our cloud-based, AI-infused retail planning and forecasting solutions integrated with our omnichannel solutions at Prada Group.”
Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group marketing director and head of corporate social responsibility, concurs. “Understanding our customers and their journey is critical to our success,” Bertelli says. “Technology can help with that and allow us to innovate faster to drive value, and ultimately growth. With Oracle, we have built a trusted relationship and know we can rely on the team and their technology to meet our business needs.”
Most recently, the Prada Group successfully deployed Oracle Retail Cloud Services for Merchandise Financial Planning, Assortment, and Item Planning to optimize its merchandising, a process that includes enhancing sales and forecasts, performance analysis, and inventory management and allocation. With the data obtained by Oracle, Prada aims to achieve a better understanding of its operations process, undertake scenario planning more effectively, and react more quickly as the market evolves.
For the next phase, Prada will deploy Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting Cloud Service, an enterprise forecasting engine within the Oracle Retail Analytics and Planning suite. The solutions sit on top of Oracle Retail AI Foundation, which provides analytical insights to drive planning, buying, moving, and selling decisions.
ASAPP Financial Technology Partners with TCU Financial Group Credit Union
ASAPP Financial Technology recently signed a five-year agreement with its latest Canadian credit union partner, Saskatchewan-based TCU Financial Group Credit Union, to bring the ASAPP Omnichannel Experience Platform (OXP) to members of the credit union across the province.
Toronto-based ASAPP is an omnichannel account origination and loan auto-decisioning solution for retail and small business banking, delivering personal and business online account origination technology. Its custom experience software and platform strategy solutions aim to create sustainable competitive advantages for regulated financial service providers as they compete against direct-to-consumer fintech solutions.
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“After a rigorous procurement process, we are thrilled to provide streamlined account origination capabilities to our members and facilitate deepened member relationships via ASAPP OXP,” remarks Greg Peacock, CEO at TCU Financial Group.
The TCU Financial Group and ASAPP OXP teams will continue their collaboration in implementing the full ASAPP OXP product suite in early 2024, setting the stage for the credit union to grow its member base, enrich existing member relations, and increase its share of wallet, executives of the credit union say.
ASAPP OXP is Canada’s most complete omnichannel experience platform for the financial services industry. The ASAPP OXP client-partner community comprises 54 credit unions across 11 provinces, managing more than $44 billion in assets and supporting in excess of 927,000 members.
IrisCX Enables Great Northern Insulation to Provide Virtual Estimates
IrisCX, the Canadian provider of a smart video platform for visual CX, has been selected by Great Northern Insulation (GNI), Canada’s largest full-service insulation contractor, to power virtual estimates, enabling GNI to deliver quotes more quickly and maintain quote accuracy. Using a combination of live consultations and self-guided video sessions for visual context, IrisCX provides cost estimates on insulation projects to customers, who connect to the company through their smartphones.
The new virtual service also reduces GNI’s carbon footprint by decreasing the need for physical in-home estimates. With some service locations as much as 300 kilometers (190 miles) away from a GNI office, IrisCX, remote customers can be served much faster by IrisCX than was formerly possible with in-person appointments.
“We recognize the opportunity to modernize the insulation industry using technology,” says GNI CEO Bill Maginas. “Partnering with IrisCX aligns with our focus on digital transformation and carbon footprint reduction strategy. It allows us to use data more efficiently and reduces our cost to serve.”
Overall, GNI is realizing several benefits from using IrisCX, Maginas notes, including competitive differentiation; fewer truck rolls to reduce overhead costs and environmental impacts; and quote accuracy as enabled by AI, augmented reality, and process automation. “We’re constantly looking for ways to improve customer experience and the services we offer,” adds Maginas. “IrisCX provides a dramatic improvement that benefits us and our customers.
WorkJam Teams Up with Worldwide Flight Services to Deliver Digital Frontline Workplace
Frontline employee experience (EX) provider WorkJam is working with global air cargo logistics firm Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) to improve employee retention and development. Beginning with the UK operations of WFS, WorkJam will be providing the tools and support necessary to deliver a successful digital transformation.
French-based WFS appointed Montreal, Canada-headquartered WorkJam to facilitate dynamic cross-level communication and engagement as WFS sought new ways to communicate directly with frontline staff and simplify in-house procedures and operating practices. For its part, WorkJam will deploy solutions to support WFS, providing a voice for employees and enhancing employee retention by ensuring worker access to resources.
Paul Carmody, WFS managing director for the UK, says the company has been looking for new ways to connect with its frontline teams but that absent the right communication tools, employee engagement was difficult to achieve. “WorkJam not only shares our ethos and emphasis on the value of employee communication and engagement, but can provide the scalable solution that holds the potential to deliver tangible benefits to the business,” Carmody notes.
WorkJam began rolling out its range of frontline communication and employee engagement tools across the WFS workforce in the UK in 1Q 2023, with new WorkJam solutions eventually to be scaled across WFS frontline employees around the world.
FullStory is Partner of Choice for Mouser Electronics
Digital experience intelligence (DXI) provider FullStory is helping Mouser Electronics, the global distributor of semiconductors and electronic components, to enhance digital products and experiences. Through the FullStory platform, the product, engineering, and customer success teams at Mouser collaborate to optimize activity and engagement, enabling them to address customer frustrations and stumbles along the digital user journey.
“Mouser serves customers in over 100 countries through the company’s e-commerce platform,” says Hayne Shumate, senior vice president of e-business at Mouser. “It is important for us to understand how all of these communities experience our websites in order for us to constantly improve. FullStory helps deliver this understanding—whether we are looking at a single user session or at aggregated behaviors.”
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Offering diagnostic insights and surfacing top opportunities to make digital improvements that grow revenue, the FullStory DXI platform is used by more than 3,300 companies in 70 countries to refine web and mobile products and experiences. Headquartered in Atlanta, FullStory is privately held, with backing from investment and venture capital firms Permira, Kleiner Perkins, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Stripes, Dell Technologies Capital, and Salesforce Ventures.
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.