Company News • 11.03.2009

Aldata / IBM Survey shows retail CIOs in bullish mood, despite tough economic conditions

Global Retail CIO Survey Finds 50% of Retailers Will Maintain IT Budgets While 26% Expect to Increase IT Spending in 2010

Aldata Solution, a leading provider of software solutions for the retail industry, today released findings from the first annual global retail CIO survey, jointly sponsored with IBM. Despite difficult economic conditions, the survey found that more than half of the retailers interviewed (51%) expect their IT budget as a percent of sales to stay the same for next year, while 26% believe their IT budget will actually increase, due to projects already underway. The survey of retail CIOs and IT directors in both the US and Europe was undertaken in Q4 2008 by retail industry research specialists Martec International.

The Aldata/IBM Retail CIO Survey indicates that most retailers are looking to use IT investment to squeeze greater returns out of assets they already own, such as inventory and space. IT investment is planned for systems that help improve stock management and availability, increase sales from new channels and improve promotional effectiveness. The survey also revealed that retailers are far less likely to consider investing in areas that do not deliver short-term ROI.

“This survey was carried out at the end of 2008 when retailers were feeling the full force of the recession, which makes the results all the more encouraging,” said Allan Davies, CMO, Aldata. “It is quite clear that CIOs are not losing their nerve, and that retailers continue to see IT investment not as a luxury, but as a means of reducing cost and improving business performance over a comparatively short time period. This certainly fits with our experience over the last few quarters. There is little appetite to Rip and Replace entire systems, but a real focus on putting in solutions in specific areas such as automatic replenishment, where the gains can be felt in months, rather than years.”

Replenishment
Globally, the survey showed that 87% of retailers either have, or plan to have automatic replenishment applications within the next three years. The results were particularly striking in EMEA, where the figure was 97%, with almost half of the respondents either in the process of implementing upgrades or planning new systems. 30% of retailers considered automatic replenishment as the most important replenishment optimization and stock management application, followed by demand forecasting (27%).

Logistics & Distribution
In terms of logistics and distribution applications, the top application was Real Time warehouse management, with 84% of US respondents already using such systems and a further 11% planning upgrades. Mobile applications also featured strongly, the data again showing US retailers further advanced than their EMEA counterparts. Whilst in EMEA, 62% of retailers surveyed have already implemented mobile applications, with a further 29% planning to upgrade or implement new systems, 100% of US retailers surveyed are already using mobile applications in logistics and distribution, with 16% planning to upgrade over the next three years.

IT & Data Architecture
Enterprise Master Data Management (MDM) was shown to be the most important application in this area, scored as such by 36% of respondents. This is the only instance in the survey of an application that is not the most widely implemented – only 28% of the sample have already implemented MDM - being the top priority for most retailers 48% of retailers either plan to upgrade or implement MDM within the next 3 years. .

For the global retail CIO survey, senior level IT executives were interviewed between September 2008 and January 2009, from North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Retailers interviewed had sales exceeding $100 million for non-food category management retailers and $250 million for food retailers. The sales of the companies interviewed totaled $265 billion and represents 5% of the North American and EMEA retail market. The total number of stores for all retailers interviewed was more than 40,000.

Survey highlights can be downloaded at www.GlobalRetailCioSurvey.com