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Holiday Retail Booming - Dependable Application Performance is a Must

Matthieu Silbermann

Retail forecasts were on target for the extended Thanksgiving weekend this year, with sales figures for the period indicating it was the strongest start of the holiday shopping season ever recorded . But while Cyber Monday was touted as the best time for online bargains, billions of dollars still went to brick-and-mortar retailers offering steep discounts.

One trend that caught retailers by surprise this year was the speed with which all of the mayhem came to a halt. Traffic at many locations dissipated by mid-afternoon on Black Friday as savvy shoppers took advantage of mobile applications and interactive, in-store sales tools to target bargains within minutes of crossing the threshold.

In-store purchasing systems like tablet-based applications gave retailers the upper hand in helping consumers save time shopping – which is critical as the holiday season comes to a close. Rather than leaving customers to their own devices, a sales associate can use an app to input the consumers' needs and quickly determine what product – and at what price – is the best fit.

This past year, a British consumer technology retailer implemented such a program in their stores. To help streamline operations among 1,300 locations, their tablet-based application relies upon lightning-fast broadband to run tablets used by sales associates on the floor. This helps the customer speed up their buying experience, allowing them to more easily explore other purchases while freeing up sales associates to pursue a greater number of potential leads.

In-store purchasing systems like this are not only great for spotting bargains, but also for speeding up and easing an otherwise frenzied shopping season. This is especially true on such storied shopping holidays as Black Friday when discounted inventories are limited. Once prized sales merchandise is no longer available, shoppers will need all the help they can get in the weeks leading up to the New Year to find suitable alternatives while prices are still low.

Now that the holiday shopping season is in full swing, retailers and buyers alike must ensure that their resources are dependable. Not only will stores need to utilize advanced shopping technology, but also systems to support their apps and devices that are running on all cylinders. An application performance tool can guarantee delivery of actionable visibility and in-depth network and application performance information to IT managers to make sure systems aren't overwhelmed during high periods of traffic. By allowing full control of application flow, IT complexity is simplified and the customer experience is reshaped – hopefully resulting in higher customer spending.

Holiday purchases are estimated to account for 19 percent of all retail sales in 2015, which in total will come to $3.2 trillion dollars, according to the National Retail Federation. The weekend following Thanksgiving only accounts for a small portion of that total, which means retailers need to be on their top game throughout the rest of the month if they want to capitalize on the season's financial potential.

Matthieu Silbermann is Director Product Management at InfoVista.

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Holiday Retail Booming - Dependable Application Performance is a Must

Matthieu Silbermann

Retail forecasts were on target for the extended Thanksgiving weekend this year, with sales figures for the period indicating it was the strongest start of the holiday shopping season ever recorded . But while Cyber Monday was touted as the best time for online bargains, billions of dollars still went to brick-and-mortar retailers offering steep discounts.

One trend that caught retailers by surprise this year was the speed with which all of the mayhem came to a halt. Traffic at many locations dissipated by mid-afternoon on Black Friday as savvy shoppers took advantage of mobile applications and interactive, in-store sales tools to target bargains within minutes of crossing the threshold.

In-store purchasing systems like tablet-based applications gave retailers the upper hand in helping consumers save time shopping – which is critical as the holiday season comes to a close. Rather than leaving customers to their own devices, a sales associate can use an app to input the consumers' needs and quickly determine what product – and at what price – is the best fit.

This past year, a British consumer technology retailer implemented such a program in their stores. To help streamline operations among 1,300 locations, their tablet-based application relies upon lightning-fast broadband to run tablets used by sales associates on the floor. This helps the customer speed up their buying experience, allowing them to more easily explore other purchases while freeing up sales associates to pursue a greater number of potential leads.

In-store purchasing systems like this are not only great for spotting bargains, but also for speeding up and easing an otherwise frenzied shopping season. This is especially true on such storied shopping holidays as Black Friday when discounted inventories are limited. Once prized sales merchandise is no longer available, shoppers will need all the help they can get in the weeks leading up to the New Year to find suitable alternatives while prices are still low.

Now that the holiday shopping season is in full swing, retailers and buyers alike must ensure that their resources are dependable. Not only will stores need to utilize advanced shopping technology, but also systems to support their apps and devices that are running on all cylinders. An application performance tool can guarantee delivery of actionable visibility and in-depth network and application performance information to IT managers to make sure systems aren't overwhelmed during high periods of traffic. By allowing full control of application flow, IT complexity is simplified and the customer experience is reshaped – hopefully resulting in higher customer spending.

Holiday purchases are estimated to account for 19 percent of all retail sales in 2015, which in total will come to $3.2 trillion dollars, according to the National Retail Federation. The weekend following Thanksgiving only accounts for a small portion of that total, which means retailers need to be on their top game throughout the rest of the month if they want to capitalize on the season's financial potential.

Matthieu Silbermann is Director Product Management at InfoVista.

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As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

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