Add More Zest to Your Ecommerce Marketing and CX with 3D Web Configuration

Having a digital infrastructure is inevitable, but it just isn’t enough to keep up with the competition. Achieving business success is about “wowing” your e-commerce buyers. In the post-pandemic world, businesses must find engaging and innovative ways to increase customer satisfaction and experience. A recent Frost & Sullivan study showed that by 2020, customer experience would overtake price and product as a key brand differentiator. True to this, business in 2020 was entirely driven by customer experience. 

View Infographic: Business Technologies to Boost Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Local shoppers switched to online shopping, door deliveries were encouraged, telemedicine became more popular, mobile and internet banking users increased, and even classrooms became virtual. 

So, how do you “wow” your customer in this age of online shopping? By giving them as close to the real experience as virtually possible! 

How do you do that? With a 3D configurator! 

A 3D product configurator allows your customers to see exactly how your product looks, acts and feels. It gives them a personal connection with their potential purchase. 3D configurators have become an integral part of the sales process and rising customer expectations during the pandemic, making it vital for specific industries. 

This blog helps you understand what a 3D web configurator is and how it can help increase your e-commerce sales and boost customer satisfaction.

Read more:How Custom Retail Software Solutions Help You Gain a Competitive Advantage?

What is a 3D Web Configurator?

In the past, customers were satisfied to see a static photograph that they could easily zoom in and out. However, with the changed circumstances and digital development, customers would like to view how various product designs or features would look in real-time, allowing them to spin, zoom, scroll, and rotate. That is precisely what a 3D web configurator allows your customers to enjoy. 

A 3D web configurator is defined as an interactive tool powered by 3D models that lets your customers personalize a product to their specifications in real-time. Plus, it allows them to choose custom options and watch them transform instantly, and receive estimates of the costs based on their customizations. 

This service gives your customers the feel of being at your store because it gives them the ability to get the feel of the product, such as the color, texture, and other aspects of your product. Customers can watch it from any device without using plugins. 

Essentially, 3D configurators are not just for retailers and car companies. All industries that sell customizable products can benefit from letting their customers see how their products look in real-time. Once this service is implemented, you can increase your ecommerce sales and boost customer satisfaction.

Read more: 6 Ways to Accelerate Business Growth and Success in 2021

How does a 3D Web Configurator Work?

A 3D web configurator accomplishes two pertinent e-commerce goals:

1. A detailed exploration of your products
2. The ability to customize the product to a customer’s specific needs

When your customers have not zeroed in on a particular product, your 3D configurator steps in to display different combinations and options for that product to inspire them to make an informed decision. In effect, your 3D configurator will help them check out the colors, styles, material and combine them in different ways until they create a personalized product. Then, as they mix and match their specifications, your configurator will allow them to see their combinations in 360-degree, in real-time mode, along with the price. Such precise control over their product will encourage them to make a purchase.  

Read more: How Top Brands Embrace Augmented Reality to Deliver Immersive Customer Experiences

How 3D Web Configurators Boost E-Commerce Sales and Customer Satisfaction?

1. Enable omnichannel experience

As mentioned at the outset, 3D configuration solutions do not require a third-party plugin which limits the number of customers who can view your product. Above all, it can be formatted for events or used in interactive stores as it can also work offline. Such interaction encourages your customers to participate in your productions, ensuring you understand their choice and budget. 

2. Grow your e-commerce sales 

Your customers will have proactive control of what they want to buy as 3D configuration solutions allow them to try out various combinations virtually. Once you know their exact requirements, you can minimize errors, misunderstandings, and mistakes between you and your customer. 

3D web configuration reduces barriers to the market as you will be able to release the options to your customers during the first stage of product development. Thus, you can grow your e-commerce sales as your customers know that you understand them clearly and provide them with quality products. 

3. Save costs

3D web configurators can redefine and shorten the sales cycle as real-time customer responses/ reactions can help you create better outcomes. This allows you to track consumer behavior in real-time. Also, you can reduce the quantity of raw materials you need to stock as you will now create products as per request.

Furthermore, you can minimize significant expenses incurred in logistics and storage to a great degree. You can also personalize this unmatched 3D technology to become as responsive as the rest of your website. 

4. Place your customers behind the wheel

As the factory floor entered the digital age, brands must let their customers take the driver’s seat for tremendous success. Only then will you precisely understand what your customers want. Knowing that will help you meet their demands accurately. The 3D web configurator allows your customers unparalleled freedom to bring their dream product to life, ensuring their satisfaction. 

5. Distinguish your brand with a “wow” factor

Consumer attention has created intense competition between brands, forcing them to spend billions in an attempt to find the magical ingredient that will capture and retain the attention of their customers. 

What determines whether their attention sticks or moves away is the “wow” factor that keeps them returning for more. A 3D configurator will help you ensure that your customers are “wowed” each time they visit your website because they would have truly enjoyed the experience. Your configurator can boost customer satisfaction by delivering the experience needed to attract and amaze your customers repeatedly.

6. Boost sales

3D web configurators increase conversion rates and revenues as your customers can make informed decisions without delay. It gives them all the information they require to make a quick purchase. For example, it offers details such as customization of the product, price, immediate and direct contact with the salesperson, detailed descriptions, and a strong call to action. Additionally, you can avoid cart abandonment scenarios through increased engagement.

Make 3D Web Configurators Your Launching Pad 

Customer engagement and interactive product visualization can customize a product of choice and provide a tangible in-store experience to your online customers. It can become a launching pad for increased growth, higher sales, and conversions. Would you like to experience the power of a 3D web configurator and don’t know where to start? Get in touch with our software development experts right away. 

How does legacy cloud migration ensure business continuity in FinTech? Explore in this article. 

Did everyone have Business Continuity Plans in place and protocols to follow during the pandemic? Yes, definitely. Did anyone expect a disaster of magnitude like this? Not in their wildest dreams or gloomiest forecasts! The pandemic forced hundreds of millions of employees to shelter in place, essentially moving all operations online. Not all organizations were equipped with the needed technological tools, and most businesses were caught off-guard. FinTech companies were not immune to the aftermath. 

For example, pre-COVID-19, it is true that a few FinTech organizations began migrating to Cloud. But, conversely, there were many who hesitated to embrace the cloud migration strategy because of legitimate concerns over critical factors such as rising costs, managing complex business data and workloads, re-training existing IT staff, and more. 

The pandemic was a wake-up call that helped businesses identify legacy cloud migration as a relevant and vital choice. Though most companies have realized that modernizing old, outdated business applications can boost productivity and increase efficiency; some are still hesitant about their cloud migration strategy.

Read more: 11 Practices Followed by Leaders to Build Resilience and Ensure Rapid Business Recovery

This blog explains why FinTech organizations must consider legacy cloud migration seriously and what are some specific benefits of cloud migration strategy.

What is legacy cloud migration?

Legacy cloud migration involves moving on-premise applications, outdated software, or programs that a company has relied upon for years. These applications may include everything from sales or CRM applications to industry-specific applications. Some FinTech organizations may be reluctant to migrate to cloud just because legacy cloud migration is a daunting project. However, maintaining a status quo can be detrimental to your business growth. 

Read more: Why modernize your legacy systems? What’s the best approach to legacy systems modernization?

Legacy cloud migration is the only light at the end of the tunnel 

The pandemic has triggered a significant reexamination of FinTech businesses and their IT priorities. Gartner predicts that “by 2022 cloud shift across key enterprises IT markets will increase to 28%.” This era of economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic affected all businesses, especially, FinTech organizations. A report from Yellowbrick showed that 84.3% say cloud computing is more important than workplace disruption.

Thankfully, cloud migration strategy was available when it was most needed – a phase when maintaining business continuity has become a priority. Consider the most important reasons for legacy cloud migration.

Why FinTech Companies Should Embrace Legacy Cloud Migration

1. People matter more than premises

As the pandemic hit the world with one wave after another with no time to catch a breath, there was a dire need for remote self-service technology. The massive role played by people working from home is a clear indication that people matter more than premises. A year ago, cloud migration strategy was considered discretionary. Today, work from home has made cloud migration mandatory.

Read more: Why It’s Time to Embrace Cloud and Mobility Trends To Recession-Proof Your Business?

Hence, now is the time for FinTech organizations to plan for their business continuity to remain adept for future upheavals, disruptions, or even disasters. When your organization migrates to cloud, you ensure your teams’ effectiveness while working remotely.

2. Prepare for the next 

Though the pandemic is wreaking havoc, it will recede in due time. However, what remains is a possibility of a similar recurrence of disruption in the future. Hence, FinTech organizations must prepare for future disruption by recognizing that the calamity to come may not be another pandemic but its functional equivalent. Legacy cloud migration will equip you to face any future disruptions and remain resilient. 

3. Facilitate real-time payments

Banks are well aware of the advantages of real-time payments. The race is on for upgrades and integrations that allow organizations to leverage real-time payments. A survey of over 500 executives indicated that 71.9% are ‘extremely interested’ in such payment capabilities. Above all, cloud brings in scalability and agility to real-time payments. Cloud migration strategy can improve the speed and consistency of transactions. Besides, it can enable fast and frictionless transactions.

Legacy cloud migration allows banks to adopt digital payments. Banks can address many of their traditional payment pain points, such as spikes in demand. 

Collaborating between payment players and cloud service providers can help your organization provide a more secure digital experience for your customers. This is of paramount importance in a world where contactless interaction is the key. According to a McKinsey survey, banks that adopt digital transformation were able to increase customer satisfaction by 15-20%, reduce cost by 20-40%, and boost conversion rates and growth by 20%.

While consumer expectations and payment preferences continue to evolve rapidly, cloud migration strategy will help FinTech industries to stay relevant and continue to grow.

Read more: Safeguarding IT Infrastructure From Cyber Attacks – Best Practices

4. Scalability and flexibility for an uncertain future

FinTech firms need an infrastructure that can grow with them and protect their business from future disruptions. Migrating to a cloud platform equips FinTech firms to adapt to branch closures while extending banking services to as many people as possible. Legacy cloud migration provides the agility to scale with speed while saving on on-premise infrastructure that is comparatively expensive to maintain and upgrade. Moreover, it can provide your organization the needed accessibility, flexibility, and scalability during economic downturns. 

5. Manage risks and compliance

Efficiency, automation, and cloud-based delivery will be critical for compliance operations. It is vital to use next-generation technology and emerging digital approaches to optimize risk modeling. Since legacy cloud migration is agile, flexible, and low cost, it can solve many challenges in operational risk and financial crime compliance activities. Additionally, solutions deployed in the cloud can assist with operational challenges. 

6. Data management 

Acquiring large quantities of accurate data is a top priority for all FinTech firms. Their success depends on all the information they must collect, from onboarding to analyzing their spending habits. Cloud migration strategy enables your firm to gather and store data securely while allowing your designated employees to access it from anywhere when required.

Read more: Cloud Migration Strategy: 7 Steps to Accomplish a Flawless Transition

The FinTech industry is at a crossroads now. How it responds to the current crisis will determine its future. The key to the survival of FinTech companies will be the rapid digitization of their business and the adoption of cloud migration strategy. Migrating to the cloud is as important as the historic move from typewriter to computer. Cloud migration has become a global force for business growth. It can reduce overhead costs and help your team focus on increasing productivity and performance.

Cloud migration strategy will become inevitable as the FinTech industry builds a more accessible financial world. By partnering with a cloud migration services provider like Fingent, you will be able to quickly and seamlessly migrate to the cloud without disrupting your business. We also help you build FinTech applications and platforms leveraging the latest technology in the market. So, give us a call, and let’s get talking. 

SAP ATTP Enables COVID Vaccine Manufacturers to Overcome Supply Chain Vulnerabilities. Find How!

Vaccinating the whole world and making everyone resistant to COVID-19 is a daunting task. From managing product life cycles to supply chain tracking, and massive distribution, SAP Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals (SAP ATTP) is helping the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers. 

With regulatory requirements looming, meeting the target of delivering COVID vaccines to millions will require an efficient system that will eliminate any hiccups in the supply chain. Pharmaceutical companies must examine serialization and track and trace solutions to control the chain of custody to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, theft, and diversion. 

Read more: 7 Practical Steps to be Implemented by Organizations that Engage in COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery

Thankfully, SAP ATTP (SAP Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals) has emerged as a solution. It can enable your company to comply with serialization and associate reporting requirements. As SAP ATTP was co-developed with the leading pharmaceutical companies, it can be tailored to address the specific needs of your pharma company and your stakeholders. This blog will explain how SAP ATTP can quicken and smoothen the race to vaccinate the world. Let us begin by understanding what SAP ATTP is.

What is SAP ATTP?

As the name SAP Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals suggests, SAP ATTP involves the journey of the vaccine from its source (the pharmaceutical company) to the destination (the end-user) within the supply chain. SAP ATTP enables companies to enforce specific measures to identify the product and view its journey to reduce counterfeit and stolen vaccines.

It addresses the regulatory requirements for serialization, tracking, and tracing of all pharmaceutical products, including COVID-19 vaccines. It is specifically designed to solve the issues with expected data volumes, queries, and reporting as per the guidelines. SAP ATTP is now playing a critical role in major pharmaceutical companies across the globe. 

Leading COVID vaccine producers like Moderna, German vaccine manufacturer CureVac, AstraZeneca, and others are relying on SAP to manufacture and distribute vaccines on a global scale. According to SAP’s report, 18 of the world’s top 20 COVID vaccine producers run their entire product lifecycle and supply chain processes on SAP for better traceability, tracking, and serialization. 

Read more: SAP for Business: 9 Ways to Maximize Business Performance

What is the significance of SAP ATTP?

If you have experienced a delay in delivering an urgently needed pharmaceutical product, you can understand the potential impact it can have on people and society. If the first challenge was to create and test vaccines at record speed, the next challenge is to vaccinate people across the globe before the virus mutates and becomes more virulent. This demand is stretching the supply chain to its limits. Digitizing their production to achieve production scale and flexibility is critical as most vaccine producers are data-heavy industries.

What are the advantages of using SAP ATTP software?

SAP ATTP is a solution that facilitates data exchange with packaging lines, supply chain partners and contract manufacturing organizations, and warehouse applications. Here are a few benefits of this software:

• Integrates serialization with business processes
• Enables compliance with directives across markets
• Reduces compliance costs for all serialization requirements
• Streamlines and manages a secure pharmaceutical supply chain
• Packaging line integration
• Boosts efficiency of your supply chain
• Enables simple reporting processes

How can SAP help win the race to vaccinate the world?

For perhaps the first time in history, pharmaceutical companies were pushed to focus all their resources on the development of vaccines in record time. And for the first time in history, they are expected to win the race to vaccinate the global population. This is an opportunity for intelligent enterprises to make a difference. SAP rose to assist by providing various solutions to address this pressing need.

1. Enables collaboration with supply chain partners

SAP helps pharmaceutical companies comply with international legislation, which focuses on ensuring genuine medicines reach patients and product authentication. SAP applications enable serial number management and regulatory reporting capabilities. Companies can use SAP to facilitate collaboration with supply chain partners, such as contract manufacturers and wholesalers. SAP cloud platform enables trading partners to exchange large amounts of serialization and associated data.  

• Pharmaceutical companies must guard against product counterfeiting, reimbursement fraud, diversion, and medication errors. 
• A company must include verification in case of the return of vaccine packs or an apparent tampering of the products. 
• SAP’s digital network consists of a blockchain-based verification repository to eliminate such counterfeit products along the supply chain. 
• Once manufacturers push data into the blockchain, wholesale distributors can execute verification requests. Since these solutions can be integrated into a pharmaceutical company’s backbone, your company enjoys a holistic view of its end-end processes. 

Read more: 6 Tips for Logistics and Supply Chain Leaders to Plan COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Strategies

2. Ensures patient safety and eliminates the risk of fake vaccines

Pharmaceutical thefts have cost billions of dollars worth of losses annually. One measure taken to overcome this challenge was to implement serialization. Serialization of pharmaceuticals protects the end-user and prevents manufacturers from producing fake goods. 

SAP serialization allows you to provide a unique identifier (UID). It enables manufacturers to define regulations based on the laws of each country. For example, certain countries may require the entire product dose to be serialized, while others may require each unit to be serialized. SAP allows you to comply according to your country’s regulations. However, serialization is just the first step.

3. Helps you gain visibility of the vaccine from its source to destination

SAP ATTP allows for a transparent journey of vaccine from its source to the destination. Tracking involves knowing the current status, such as the current location of the shipment, in whose possession it is, and the condition of the vaccine, while Tracing involves knowing the past, such as where the vaccine has been, who had it, and was it handled appropriately.

SAP ATTP is beneficial to companies since the early stages of production and distribution. As it allows you to enter all the product details into the system, it is easy to locate where the product is at any given point in the supply chain. Furthermore, SAP can enable withdrawing a specific compromised batch instead of an entire shipment saving a considerable amount of money.

Pharmaceutical regulations vary from country to country. Nevertheless, all pharmaceutical products must be serialized for easy identification within the supply chain. Apart from this, certain governments may require companies to report data to regulatory bodies or authorities. They may also require verification of the products to ensure it is an authentic product. SAP can make these tasks more efficient as it allows you to:

• Generate and format serialized numbers
• Aggregate goods for quick and easy scanning of the vaccine units

Read more: How SAP Helps Realize Voice-enabled Warehouse Operations 

Leave no loopholes in the vaccine supply chain

SAP ATTP helps pharmaceutical industries to gain real-time visibility into the location and condition of their product along the entire supply chain. In addition, it helps them perform better management by allowing real-time reporting and analysis to turn insights into actions fueling the mission to vaccinate the world.

As an SAP Silver Partner, Fingent top software development company, can help you implement SAP ATTP seamlessly and cost-effectively. Time is of the essence right now, and vaccine producers need to get the vaccine out faster while ensuring safety and compliance. So let’s save lives together. Connect with our SAP expert to see how you can benefit from implementing Advanced Track and Trace for pharmaceuticals. 

The Role of Chatbots in Boosting Brand Loyalty and Experience

As social messaging apps are gaining popularity, AI-powered chatbots are one of the best ways to reach out to a broader audience. Soon, several businesses across various verticals will implement AI chatbots that will help them carry out multiple tasks, including customer service and marketing activities.

According to Gartner, by 2021, over 50% of companies will spend more on developing chatbots (intelligent conversational assistants) against traditional mobile app development.

A chatbot is an AI-based program that communicates with humans through text messages or chats. It is a virtual assistant integrated into mobile applications, websites, or instant messengers and enables better engagement with your customers.

Read more: 5 Leading NLP Platforms that Support Chatbot Development

Two common types of chatbot

There are two types of chatbots a business can use: Transactional Chatbot and Conversational chatbot.

• Transactional Chatbot is pre-designed to provide a customer with a fixed set of choices. The customer can select an appropriate option, and the chatbot will then assist them through the whole process by providing more choices till their problem is solved. A transactional chatbot is an excellent choice for banks, online food delivery, restaurants, or businesses that are able to understand and pre-define the solutions/ products that their customers generally seek.
• Conversational Chatbot is designed to understand and respond to a conversation in a more human-like manner. It is equipped with artificial intelligence and has access to knowledge databases and other contextual information.

A conversational chatbot is more suited for businesses with advanced SaaS tools and B2B companies providing enterprise solutions and online social platforms.

Read more: How to Choose the Right Chatbot for Your Business

Five leading chatbot use cases in vogue today

1. Healthcare chatbots

Hospitals, clinics, and patient treatment centers leverage chatbots for booking appointments, sending medical information to refill prescriptions, answering common questions raised by patients or their attenders, checking physicians’ availability, and so on. According to Crunchbase, VCs have invested over 800 million dollars in at least 14 known start-ups like Safedrugbot, Sensely, Cancer Chatbot, and others to own a version of a chatbot with health features. The most significant advantage is that chatbots function silently 24/7 without disrupting anyone and answering questions at any time of the day. 

Browsing through the website of a multispecialty hospital and sifting through the different specialties and doctors can be daunting. Chatbots reduce this strain and help patients book an appointment quickly based on their ailment or health condition. When a patient interacts with the chatbot, it will ask a series of questions to determine which doctor and department the patient should visit.  

Example of a healthcare chatbot

Healthily is an AI-driven chatbot that allows you to input your symptoms and get an appropriate diagnosis. Its machine learning model allows the app to give near accurate or even accurate diagnoses.

Chatbots like Healthily prevent patients from waiting in long queues or relying on phone calls to consult doctors. With the ongoing pandemic, chatbots are making patients feel less anxious about seeking medical care. Chatbots help them get assistance in real-time.

2. HR chatbots

As the traditional office spaces give way to modern workspaces that are mobile, digital, or home, HR (PeopleOps) professionals face the increasing pressure to streamline communications and send instant responses to employees. Chatbots powered by AI free people from low value, tedious, repetitive, and transactional tasks to more high-value, strategic, engaging, and creative work. The inherent value extends to providing consistency and coherence to employee communication and reducing confusion for the end-user while delivering an instant response. HRs get more time to rethink the way they engage with employees and manage their entire cycle of work, including recruitment, onboarding, managing payroll and benefits, training and skills development, performance management, and so on.

Example of an HR chatbot

AskHR is an AI-powered HR chatbot that enables employees to get answers to the most frequently asked questions. AskHR bot natively supports 50+ languages and is hence a globally popular virtual assistant. It offers voice, email, and text support to employees and helps reduce costs, enhances employee engagement, and offers analytics to derive valuable insights. 

Read more: Capitalizing on AI Chatbots Will Redefine Your Business: Here’s How

MUSA, Fingent’s AI virtual assistant

Multi Utility Assistant or MUSA is an AI-powered virtual assistant (a chatbot) integrated with Fingent Hub – Fingent’s internal employee management system. MUSA enables employees to get answers to common queries related to HR and IT DevOps processes at Fingent.

The virtual assistant helps our employees with questions related to their leaves, company policy, hardware or software issues, IT requests, and many more.   

3. E-commerce chatbots

E-commerce chatbots guide customers in their purchase decisions.

Often, customers can get confused while browsing several products online. An E-commerce chatbot helps customers obtain detailed information about the product they are looking for or even helps them land on the right product page. Chatbots also help reduce cart abandonment as they can remind customers about the items left in their cart and prompt them to update their cart or purchase the items. Timely reminders and notifications will nudge the customers to revisit their carts and make a purchase decision, thereby helping businesses generate revenue quickly. 

Example of an E-commerce chatbot

While launching its AirMax Day shoes, Nike increased its average CTR by 12.5 times and the conversions four times with the help of StyleBot- Nike’s chatbot.  

Chatbots play an essential role in providing more reliable and quicker customer support and keeping the customers up-to-date about the delivery status of their purchases.

Read more: 5 Ways Chatbots Can Transform Your Real Estate Business

4. Chatbots in banking and finance

Chatbots are a great addition to any bank or finance institute that prioritizes customer service inclined towards digital interactions.

Chatbots can help users check their account balance, transfer money to other accounts, view the history of transactions, or even locate the closest ATM. In addition, banks are currently using chatbots for marketing activities such as sending customized information about a customer’s savings, investments, etc., and notifying customers about their new products and services.

Example of a BFSI chatbot

In 2018, Bank of America introduced Erica, their AI Chatbot. It helps customers conduct simple actions such as paying bills, receiving credit report updates, view e-statements, and seek financial advice. Recently, Erica’s capabilities have been updated to enable clients to make smarter financial decisions by providing them with personalized insights. Thanks to its budgeting capabilities, Erica users grew to 12.2 million in Q1 2020 compared to 10.3 million in Q4 2019.

5. Hospitality chatbots

The hospitality industry is hugely dependent on customer service, goodwill, reviews, and references. As travelers use multiple channels (website, social media, mobile travel apps, travel aggregator portals, etc.) to look for information, travel and hospitality service providers face stiff competition in disseminating updated content across all media. They need to be available round-the-clock in answering customers or helping with bookings. Chatbots help customers make bookings, gain more information about hotel services, travel packages, and inquire about offers and deals. From check-in to several concierge services such as booking restaurants to activity reservations, chatbots can seamlessly assist customers.

Example of a hospitality chatbot

Quicktext is a popular AI-powered chatbot for hotels that automatically handles 85% of guests in 24 languages and delivers instant response to customer requests across six different channels. In addition, it serves as a messaging hub where hospitality businesses can centrally manage Live Chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, SMS, and Booking.com communications.

Read more: Hospitality Technology Trends: Revive The Lost Glory in 2021

How can chatbots help your business?

With the rise of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and wearable technology, chatbots provide industries with new avenues for businesses to engage with their customers.

1. Leverage messaging platforms

While social media engages audiences, messaging platforms enable businesses to have a one-on-one conversation with their customers. So, by integrating chatbots with your messaging platform, you could eliminate the need to build a new app and save time and money.

2. Customer service

Chatbots are a great way to augment customer service. The bots are available 24x7x365, which allows them to initiate the conversation proactively and prevent customers from waiting for long.

3. Customer engagement

Intelligent chatbots allow you to have more in-depth conversations at an individual level with your audiences, freeing them of any irrelevant information. So, a well-designed chatbot can extend the conversation and make the visitor come back for a discussion or a purchase. This can go a long way in establishing your brand loyalty.

4. Cost optimization

Getting a chatbot for your business is far cheaper and faster than developing a cross-function app or hiring additional employees. Chatbots do not need breaks, get tired, or make errors. Also, they can perform repetitive tasks without complaining.

Read more: A Chatbot Story – How We Built a Comprehensive Onboarding Assistant for a Leading Research University

Develop a custom chatbot for your business application

Chatbots are being widely used across different business functions and are augmenting customer experience. With advances in technology, bots will only get more competent and open new avenues to streamline customer communications.

We software development experts build bespoke and personalized chatbots leveraging AI and machine learning that enable your business to generate leads, increase revenue, and enhance user experience. If you are planning to develop a customized chatbot that can compete with the predefined bots in the market, contact us. 

Unlock the value of data analytics and business intelligence with Odoo ERP

From cloud computing to the Internet of Things, the fourth industrial revolution has brought about remarkable technological reforms in most business strategies across industries. Today, businesses strive to face competition with advanced software tools and cutting-edge technologies. Organizations are implementing data-driven methods to improve their product and service offerings and add value to their customers. Techniques like Business Intelligence and Data Analytics help companies survive the cut-throat competition, accelerate speed-to-market, retain customers, and innovate. Data analytics and BI unlock the door to several opportunities, enabling companies to expand, grow and stay relevant in the ever-changing technology landscape.

However, implementing Data Analytics and Business Intelligence features in your existing business model requires careful planning. Intelligent, digital core ERPs like Odoo have come up with specific tools and modules to simplify the entire implementation process and help businesses gain value. 

Read more: How Odoo ERP Enhances Retail Operations Management

Let’s cut to the chase first. Before we see Odoo’s tailored BI and Analytics offerings, it would be good to get the basics right. 

What is the difference between Business Intelligence and Data Analytics?

• Business Intelligence refers to the information required to augment business decision-making activities, while data analytics refers to changing the raw data into a meaningful format.
• Primarily, BI supports decision-making and helps companies grow. On the other hand, data analytics helps build a model, cleanse, predict and modify data based on business needs.
• Business Intelligence can be implemented using various BI tools. However, BI implementation is done only on historical data stored in data warehouses or data marts. Data analytics can be implemented using BI tools. However, the implementation will depend on the strategy designed by the organization.
• BI can be debugged only through the historical data supplied, while data analytics can be debugged through the proposed model to convert the data into a meaningful format.

Read more: How Data Warehousing Adds Value To Data Visualization & Reporting

A brief overview of Odoo ERP

At Fingent, we specialize in custom Odoo ERP implementation, Odoo ERP integration, Odoo ERP migration, upgrade, maintenance, and support. We help you tailor Odoo ERP features to match your specific business requirements. Odoo ERP customization helps enterprises solve complex business challenges, streamline operations and boost overall productivity. When you have all the required business data in one place, with personalized dashboards offering helpful insights, your decision-making and business strategy formulation become seamless. Being an Official Partner of Odoo, Fingent makes it a cakewalk for you. 

Read more: Why Choose Fingent as Your Odoo ERP Partner

With its vast suite comprising over 40 business productivity applications, Odoo provides a smoother and simpler way to run your business. The range of business apps offered by Odoo is highly comprehensive, fully integrated, easy to use, and supports numerous different industries.

Odoo offers over ten dedicated modules to effectively handle diverse business processes such as HRM, finance, CRM, manufacturing, accounting, inventory, and eCommerce. The most significant advantage of Odoo ERP is that you get a free and open-source community version under a general public license. This reduces the overall project cost significantly and so is exceptionally suited for small-to-medium enterprises.

Read more: 5 Salient Features of Odoo that Make it a Reliable ERP for Enterprises

Odoo ERP: Business Intelligence and Data Analytics 

Odoo ERP includes a comprehensive data visualization and analysis software interface that helps companies capitalize on their data sources. It has an in-depth dashboard interface and powerful Business Intelligence capabilities for data mining and secret meaning extraction.

Here the top five BI and Data Analytics features offered by Odoo ERP:

1. Integrated spreadsheets

Introduced by Odoo 14, this feature has been included to preserve the ease and comfort of users working in excel spreadsheets. Previously, users had to download the pivot view of every report initially for editing the excel spreadsheet.

This feature makes it easier to bind and store excel sheets in the ERP itself. While the integrated spreadsheets make it easy to review reports quickly, its dashboard pivot table link helps access live data.

Users can perform all possible acts and input formulas, add and delete columns, apply formatting, and do more like ordinary excel sheets.

2. Sales analysis

Odoo ERP offers an intuitive dashboard GUI that helps monitor sales data and keep sales records for future reference. To retrieve relevant data, all you need to do is apply different filters or divide it into various segments for easy access. You can use bar graphs, pie charts, and line graph analysis to get an organized view of your sales data.

Analyzing sales data helps you gain insights into the purchasing habits of your customers. Additionally, it allows you to refine the sales tactics to reach out and drive them down the sales funnel to the target audience.

Read more: How Odoo ERP Simplifies Sales Management in Your Organization

3. Employee performance tracking

The Odoo dashboards, along with your sales team’s performance, allow you to assess your CRM efforts quickly. This, combined with efficient resource utilization and task scheduling, can help you take adequate steps to improve your sales strategy.

4. Inventory analysis

The Odoo inventory module provides a comprehensive view of the inventory. It is equipped with all the important Business Intelligence tools and analytics features. This feature provides you with reports and insights into the inventory and warehouse data in real-time. Odoo inventory module enables you to monitor your stock movements, stock receipts, average delivery time, turnover of inventory, and valuation.

5. Lead nurturing

The Odoo CRM supports an exceptional and descriptive graphical view for monitoring and evaluating your lead data. You can then group your leads based on factors such as gender, age, location, business type, and several other segments. To retrieve the lead data easily, you can apply filters and set time ranges to compare the new leads with your old leads. Moreover, this enhances your CRM efforts and helps build a stronger relationship with your customers.

Read more: Odoo CRM vs. Salesforce CRM: How To Make The Right Choice

Become a data powerhouse

There’s no denying that BI and data analytics are helping businesses stay relevant and stay ahead of the competition by improving decision-making. BI tools help you analyze your customers’ preferences and buying habits. Powerful BI and analytics features offered by Odoo ERP help refine your marketing strategies at regular intervals.

Fingent top custom software development company, provides end-to-end Odoo ERP consulting and implementation services for businesses across different industries, enabling them to resolve complex business problems. We have the expertise to formulate strategies through Odoo ERP solutions to achieve optimal results.

If you have overwhelming volumes of business data that you want to explore and exploit with advanced BI and data analytics tools, we’re here to help you with the same. Give us a call and discover the best plans to make your business truly data-driven. 

A Comparison of Top 5 NLP Platforms: Select Your Chatbot Development Platform Wisely

The surge of artificial intelligence-based applications and conversational AI have heightened the use of NLP (Natural Language Processing). Each day, businesses collect an enormous amount of structured and unstructured data from their customers and users. Such information is collected through chatbots, intelligent assistants, and so on. Analyzing these data offers businesses insights into crucial operations and enhances their decision-making. However, manually inferring insights from tons of data is a challenging endeavor. This is where NLP platforms plays a vital role. This article will help you evaluate five different NLP platforms you can consider while developing a chatbot for your business support functions. 

How Does NLP Platforms Help Businesses

Gartner and IDC report that more than 80% of the enterprise data generated today is unstructured. Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology helps us derive meaning from the vast labyrinth of online data. NLP refers to applying several computational techniques that enable us to do analysis and synthesis of natural language and speech. According to a report by Intrado GlobeNewswire, the NLP market is expected to be work USD 42.04 billion by 2026.

Chatbots are software applications that help us conduct conversations online via text or text-to-speech instead of directly communicating with a human agent.  

Chatbots provide a better service experience to customers by responding to customer queries promptly, accurately, and most importantly, like humans. AI-powered chatbots can be trained to learn from data to respond in different and diverse scenarios. 

However, picking the right chatbot platform can be a gigantic task. Here’s an analysis of five NLP platforms. Choose your chatbot development platform wisely. 

Read more: Capitalizing on AI Chatbots Will Redefine Your Business: Here’s How

1. IBM Watson Assistant

A pioneer in the chatbot market, IBM’s Watson Assistant has evolved into a holistic customer care product. As the pandemic weighed heavily on businesses, customers and employee services were challenged in unimaginable ways. IBM Watson Assistant is designed to solve customer and employee challenges, so its relevance became even more significant during this time. Using IBM Watson Assistant to create your chatbot helps in the following ways:

First contact resolution

Resolving questions quickly and successfully is one of the biggest priorities of Watson Assistant. One of the critical challenges of first contact is user engagement. If that is your concern, here is how Watson contact can help:

• Allows integration with the phone, SMS, and WhatsApp: As it can integrate with phone and SMS, you can deploy speech services with natural sounding voices created with the help of advanced AI.
• Best intent recognition accuracy: Watson Assistant helps you understand your customers’ questions without always requesting them to rephrase the question.

Open ecosystem

Watson Assistant is designed as an open ecosystem. It, therefore, allows you to connect with your existing tools, systems, and applications. Besides, it gives you the ability to orchestrate the end-to-end experience. 

Scale your assistant to increase complex use cases

Watson Assistant allows you to scale your virtual assistant beyond simplistic FAQ bots. It can be customized easily to fit the specific needs of your business. 

Use cases: Companies such as Botanalytics, Ebix, and SnapEngage use Watson Assistant.

Read more: A Chatbot Story – How We Built a Comprehensive Onboarding Assistant for a Leading Research University

2. Amazon Lex

Amazon Lex allows you to create and embed engaging chatbots into your applications, shielding you from the complexities of NLU (Natural Language Understanding) and speech recognition. Here are some of the top features of Amazon Lex. 

Quicker integration

The capabilities of Amazon Lex are simple and easy to use, allowing you to scale up from ground zero to a fully operational chatbot within a matter of minutes. Using a combination of aliases and versioning, you can roll out your conversational interfaces into multiple environments.

Cost-effective solution

Amazon Lex has no upfront costs. You can pay-as-you-go. 

Fully managed service

It provides all the necessary features to build, deploy, scale, and monitor your chatbot.

Business use cases

• Commerce chatbot: Allows you to order food
• Support chatbot: Provides automated customer support
• Enterprise chatbot: This allows you to connect to enterprise data resources
• Use cases of Companies: Lumeneo.com, Paralect, and CommonBond use Amazon Lex.

3. Rasa

Rasa platform is an open-source framework. It is leading in ML toolkits that help developers create better chatbots with minimal training data. The two major components of the Rasa stack are Rasa NLU and Rasa Core. Rasa core helps create intelligent, conversational chatbots. 

It is best for businesses that are looking to increase subscriber engagement and for those who are interested in marketing automation and personalization.

The benefits of Rasa are:

• You can deploy into your own server by keeping the components in-house
• Highly customizable
• Allows for multiple environments necessary for development, staging, and production
• It helps you send individualized newsletters to each of your subscribers
• It continues to self-learn when it interacts with people
• It allows you to understand your customers better
• It can be integrated with Facebook Messenger, Twilio, Telegram, and more

4. SpaCy

Spacy is an open-source NLP library that is designed for production usage. It helps you build real-world projects and handle large amounts of text data. It is a one-stop operation for most heavy-hitting functions for NLP. 

It is best for companies that are bootstrapping a vast production or for vendors in charge of enterprise solutions. It has proven highly useful for companies that require industry-level solutions and need enhanced language support.

Some of the benefits of SpaCy are:

• It easily allows deep data mining
• It does not weigh down the user with obscure formulas
• It can analyze text quicker than its competitors
• Enables businesses to implement strategies to interact with customers and leads
• It is capable of working with over twenty languages
• Allows you to handle NLP solutions across an international suite of languages. 
• It is a powerhouse for every deep learning algorithm with the tools you need to teach your programs human language.

5. Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure bot service helps you develop, deploy and host a chatbot in an uncomplicated manner. It is a managed bot-building platform with an integrated environment. It is purpose-built for bot development. 

Microsoft Azure bot services are best for enterprises and IT companies. 

• It helps run FQAs speedily and consistently reducing customer management issues
• Easy to integrate with various Azure services
• You can build, connect, test, deploy and manage intelligent bots from one place
• Easy to integrate with other chatbot software such as Jabber or Skype

Read more: How to Choose the Right Chatbot for Your Business

Why choose Fingent as your chatbot development partner?

Acquire estimates that nearly 1.4 billion people are willing to talk to chatbots. Did you know that chatbots can handle 80% of routine customer questions? These figures prove that the chatbot platform is the present and future of your business. 

However, it is important to choose a chatbot development partner carefully. We at Fingent software development experts ensure your chatbot platform is easy-to-use even for non-tech employees. A customized and fine-tuned chatbot frees people up from low value, boring, repetitive, and transactional tasks. It enables your employees to focus on high-value, strategic, engaging, and creative work. The business value also lies in that the chatbot provides consistency and coherence to your communication, reduces/ eliminates confusion for the end-user while giving an instant response. It helps your employees get things done fast as they need not worry about the low value, boring, repetitive, and transactional tasks. Thanks to chatbot development! 

We will work with you through all the stages, from requirements identification, technology selection to planning and implementation. We will continue to support you in managing the chatbot after deployment. While you zero down on the chatbot platform, choosing the right partner to help you develop the chatbot according to your specific requirements is essential. Give us a call, and let us get talking.

How Business Intelligence in SAP Helps You Become a Data-driven Organization

Business Intelligence is the data powerhouse essential for the survival of your business. BI can help organizations evaluate and transform complex data into meaningful, actionable information. This information allows organizations to generate operational insights and supports effective, strategic, and tactical decision-making. Business Intelligence in SAP makes data-driven decision-making better, faster, and more effective. This article helps you understand all you need to know about Business Intelligence in SAP.

Read more: SAP for Business: 9 Ways to Maximize Business Performance

Business Intelligence in SAP

Business Intelligence in SAP is a centralized suite for data analysis and reporting. It allows you to gain data from multiple data sources and distribute it to different Business Intelligent systems. In essence, Business Intelligence in SAP can work as a target system for data transfer or a source system for data distribution.

Business Intelligence in SAP allows an organization to share information in real-time with all involved, from the CEO to lower-level employees. It offers a panoramic view of data to all those with appropriate credentials. Business Intelligence in SAP can be customized easily to your specific needs. This would also mean that you can access the information much faster. 

Read more: How SAP Supports Effective Business Continuity Planning 

Advantages of Business Intelligence in SAP

According to Statista, the global market size for business intelligence (BI) and analytics software applications is forecast to touch USD 17.6 billion by 2024. Such an increase is a clear indication of the wide range of benefits Business Intelligence in SAP can offer organizations. 

Here are a few advantages of Business Intelligence in SAP:

1. An entire range of BI-related products

SAP offers all the BI tools necessary for your company to leverage a data platform. Business Intelligence in SAP allows you to deploy these tools according to your requirement. The BI tools can be used for querying, analyzing, and reporting. You can also use them to identify trends in the data and discover any underlying issue that adversely affects the business. 

SAP Analytics Cloud allows you to centralize your BI tools. From this central point, you can provide permission-based data access to the employees according to their job requirements. Additionally, ad hoc reporting tools enable you to formulate questions and find instant answers. You can gather these answers and data into valuable insight, which can be shared with the rest of the relevant employees.

Read more: 7 Crucial Business Challenges Solved by SAP Analytics Cloud 

2. Information at your fingertips

Business Intelligence in SAP comes with an enterprise-wide sharing functionality. It simplifies the data to be understood easily in common business terms rather than complex semantic language. Simplifying data makes it easy to search for critical information and gain valuable insights. 

Moreover, data simplification and insights generation allow you to share your findings and insights with other users across your organization. For good decision-making, businesses need valuable insights into various business modules such as finance, sales, operations, and human resources. Business intelligence combines all the views from these modules to provide more accurate information. Now, each decision-maker is armed with relevant information to make critical decisions that affect your organization.

3. Self-service visualization capabilities

Dragging data from vast storage and introducing it to a user is a gigantic task that requires data-specific knowledge and engineering skills. SAP offers several self-service tools for BI users. The self-service visualization capabilities of Business Intelligence in SAP allow its users to view and analyze data more efficiently. With this capability, you can aggregate data, conduct trend analysis, and uncover valuable insights. This can reduce maintenance costs while considerably shrinking the time spent on reporting-related tasks.

Read more: How Fingent Helps CFOs Gain New Insights and Reliably Enable Key Decisions

4. Ability to create interactive BI dashboards 

Business Intelligence in SAP enables you to create interactive BI dashboards that can be customized for each user. Additionally, decision-makers can access and view these dashboards from anywhere and at any given time. 

You can access the dashboards via smartphones. The dashboards are also accessible through browsers, applications, or desktop widgets, even when you are offline. It means that all users can remain connected to the company’s server at all times. 

5. Integration with MS Office application

You can realize the true value of the data you possess if only you share those insights and reports with other users. Since most reporting and dashboard modules are integrated with sharing capabilities, your employees can easily share valuable insights. Integration with the MS Office application allows users to perform data analysis in multiple dimensions. It enables them to manipulate and filter data dynamically. 

Business Intelligence in SAP allows you to import large amounts of data to MS Excel, enabling you to analyze and forecast effectively. You can also embed information into MS PowerPoint. This feature is helpful when you need to present business insights to stakeholders and colleagues. 

6. Easy to use interface

Business Intelligence tools can be very complicated, with a complex interface designed mainly for skilled programmers or data analysts. However, Business Intelligence in SAP comes with a good instrument that allows for an intuitive user interface. With a bit of time and skill, it is easy to master the interface. Onboarding a new business user becomes more convenient as they can access all the instruments from a single web-based interface.

7. Greater flexibility and scalability

Business Intelligence in SAP is easy to integrate as it offers deployment options for most of its products. As Business Intelligence in SAP is service-oriented, it is easily scalable. Based on the need of the hour, businesses can either increase or decrease. Though you begin using business intelligence for a single project, later, you can expand to the rest of the organization. It means that both large enterprises and small businesses can benefit from Business Intelligence in SAP.

8. Allows your IT department to engage in more meaningful work 

Business Intelligence in SAP can automate mundane and time-consuming tasks. It also ensures that the employees in your organization have all the resources they need to perform their tasks. It reduces the dependency on your IT department and helps your IT professionals focus their time on more productive and relevant jobs. 

Read more: Top 7 Business Benefits of Adopting SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation 

Bottom line

Easier access to data, smarter insights, better business – you can’t go wrong with Business Intelligence in SAP. It helps you run complex queries and provides you with a highly scalable solution. What more can you ask for? 

Fingent is an SAP Silver Partner and is well-placed to help you get started with your BI journey. Get in touch with us and transform your business into a data-driven organization. 

How Retail Software Solutions Help You Gain A Competitive Advantage

The retail industry has witnessed a tremendous transformation over the past few years. Innovative retail technologies have made the sector fast-paced and highly competitive. The advent of cloud technology has also disrupted the retail industry from the ground up. These technology changes accelerate the need for advanced and bespoke retail software solutions that can effectively automate most routine store operations. 

Why should you adopt custom retail software solutions?  

Fingent helps you develop custom retail software solutions that help you:

• Automate everyday retail store operations,
• Switch to e-commerce quickly,
• Enhance inventory management,
• Streamline payments and invoices tracking, 
• Improve order fulfillment, and
• Serve your customers better and faster. 

Read more: Custom Software Development is the Ideal Way to Build Business Apps in 2021 

As several countries continue with lockdown measures, the digital shopping trend and the shift in consumer behavior are here to stay. Retailers are forced to address the rising consumer expectations with limited resources like transport restrictions, shortage of labor, out-of-stock scenarios, and so on. Contactless shopping has found a better place in today’s business landscape, and retailers need to adopt personalized retail software solutions to stay relevant and competent in the market. 

A few stats that underscore the significance of custom retail software solutions

The following figures suggest why brick-and-mortar stores must adopt retail software solutions and digital transformation to stay ahead of competitors and attract loyal clients.

• 30% of consumers do not wait for more than two minutes to determine if the product they want to buy is in stock.
• 78% of the customers would not use a retailer again after three late or incomplete deliveries.
• 87% of buyers leave the store if the product they are looking for is unavailable and there is no assistant nearby.

Read more: Digital Transformation in Retail: Why it Matters? 

Our custom retail software solutions are perfect for companies of different sizes. We help you build and integrate software tailored to your retail business. We create personalized retail software solutions that are scalable and meet the growing needs of a single shop or even a vast retail chain consisting of several Points of Sale (POS).

Benefits of custom retail software solutions

The most significant features and capabilities of retail software solutions include:

• Managing orders, products, and inventory, 
• Handling financial transactions, 
• Streamlining the supply chain, 
• Helping human resources and marketing campaigns, and
• Managing customer relations.

Here are the benefits of custom retail software solutions.

1. Offers real-time visibility

Retail software solutions allow you to control warehouses and shop floors in online mode and identify if certain products are in or out of stock. Also, it helps you send instant alerts if something is out of order and thus avoid lengthy downtimes.

2. Automates in-store processes

Retail software solutions help automate all major store tasks such as billing, price regulation, inventory auditing, reporting, payroll records, returns processing, and more.

3. Improves customer service

As retail software solutions help automate most store processes, your employees can spend more time engaging with the customers and promoting your new products and latest arrivals. Customer reps will have the historical data in hand while attending a customer service call. This helps them save time, effort, and money, reduce returns and refunds, and direct customers to the optimal solution. Embedded analytics in the software allows your marketing team to send personalized recommendations to your customers based on their shopping history and online behavior. 

Read more: A Comprehensive Guide on Developing Custom Accounting Software for Business 

Different types of retail software solutions

1. Point of Sales (POS) software

The software for shop management, implemented in brick-and-mortar stores, facilitates seamless transactions between customers and the store on the spot. The POS market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 14% from 2016 to 2024. Fingent helps you develop custom Point of Sales software that enables you to manage sales, inventory, and employees with ease. We build custom POS software for your single store or a retail network. It helps boost your customer engagement and revenue. 

2. Inventory management software

We help you develop custom inventory management software for tracking, managing, and organizing product sales, material purchases, and other production processes. Typically, the inventory management software works with wireless tracking, barcodes, and radio-frequency identification to support inventory tracking and control. 

3. Payment processing software

Payment processing software is a secure program that connects eCommerce sites via virtual terminals to other payment systems that acknowledge credit cards and other online payment methods. Payment processing software allows users to add their card or bank details and notifies financial institutions that approve or reject payments. We help integrate payment processing software into your retail software solutions.

4. Retail ERP systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate modules for controlling all stages of business. An ERP system is a perfect software for shop management. ERPs are customizable and support integration with third-party systems. ERPs like Odoo and SAP allow developing specific modules to suit your business needs. For instance, SAP FICO (Finance and Cost controlling module in SAP) and SAP Ariba (sourcing, procurement, and financial supply chain solutions). 

Read more: How SAP Solutions Allow Retailers to Stay Competitive in 2021 

We are an Official Partner of Odoo as well as a Silver Partner of SAP. We are well placed to offer the best ERP consulting, implementation, and maintenance services for your business across these two platforms. 

Read more: How Odoo ERP Enhances Retail Operations Management  

5. e-Commerce software

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the adoption of eCommerce among retailers. That said, retail software platforms are a must today. The software enables online store owners to add and remove products, process payments, fulfill orders, etc. Fingent helps leverage numerous eCommerce development frameworks such as Magento, Odoo, etc., to build B2B and B2C e-commerce software for your business. 

Read more: 5 Reasons to Integrate Your E-commerce Application with Odoo ERP 

You can deploy retail software solutions either in the cloud or on-premise according to your specific requirements:

• On-premise retail software solutions:  An on-premise retail application is installed on your local computers or local servers. However, you may need the expertise of an IT specialist like Fingent to maintain the system and handle updates or fix issues.
• Cloud-based retail software solutions: Cloud-based retail software solutions do not require to be installed on your hardware. If you have a stable and reliable internet connection, you can deploy the retail software as a SaaS solution, which is managed by the providers automatically.

Steps to create custom retail software for your business

1. Choose the right vendor

Selecting the right software provider is crucial as well as challenging. Your choice will determine how positively a future system will impact your business performance. 

2. Plan and budget

Create a detailed plan and discuss the key features your system should include. Whether to have an omnichannel solution, what function it should perform, what third-party system it needs to be integrated with, and the software development budget must be considered. You can opt for custom software development. At Fingent, we provide you with out-of-the-box retail software solutions within your budget.

3. Development and implementation

Here are a few best practices to take advantage of custom software development: 

• Include an internal team of specialists having the needed expertise and experience to participate in the implementation process.
• Provide your team with adequate training to get started and explain the benefits. Your offshore software development partner can help you with this. At Fingent, we help ease your transition to custom software. We offer training and support and provide post-release maintenance and support to our customers. 
• Eliminate inactive accounts and other documents that have not been processed for years to simplify the migration.

4. Testing

The retail software system implementation requires continuous control and testing. Thus, most companies rely on continuous testing to ensure the process will happen simultaneously with the integration.

Additionally, you must be prepared to address several issues. The primary purpose of the final testing is to simulate the lifecycle of your business with go-live processes. Fingent has a dedicated Quality Assurance & Testing team that ensures your application is bug-free, high-performing, and responsive.   

5. Maintenance

After successfully implementing the custom retail software system, it needs support and maintenance that must be provided either by your technical experts or the software provider. As said above, Fingent offers post-launch maintenance support and change enhancement services for the custom software we develop. 

With extensive experience in retail software development and eCommerce systems, we can become your reliable partner and make your company a front-runner in the retail industry.

If you are looking for custom software for shop management or tailored retail software solutions, please drop us a message.