4 Reasons a Mobile Intranet is Critical for Retailers in 2019

Australians now spend an average of just over 5 hours online daily, with 1.5 of these hours dedicated to social media, according to data from We Are Social. These are the bare facts of how people now interact with each other as well as consume information, as mobile data usage skyrockets.

With people glued to their smartphones in their off-time, are you using the same tech in your workplace to drive team interaction and flow of information? And if you do have a mobile intranet in place already, then how effective is it?

Here are 4 reasons why an effective mobile intranet is absolutely critical for retailers in 2019.

1. Your employees get to share what works for sales

With the effects of online shopping and increased competition putting the pressure on physical stores, it’s more important than ever that retailers learn what works to increase sales with each and every foot in the door.

In-store experience is just one piece of the omni-channel selling experience for customers these days – but it’s still a very important one.

Think With Google recently shared the following insights into in-store retail:

• 61% of shoppers would rather shop with brands that also have a physical location than ones that are online only
• 78% of holiday shoppers who visited a store turned to online search before going into a store
• 52% of shoppers think getting deals on their smartphone while in stores is a shopping trend that is both cool and something they’d use

Your retail workforce can observe customers in stores, chat to them, and gain insights into what shoppers want and use – then share on your intranet. You might even decide that you’d like to have floating dedicated team members in stores doing customer research and offering discounts for insights.

2. Unified, always up-to-date team training materials available from anywhere at any time

Pulling out each employee to sit down at a terminal in the back office, or gathering the team together to do a health and safety briefing before work starts is a thing of the past.

With a mobile intranet, you can put in place Enterprise Document Management that organizes training by function and role, always up-to-date, all in the one place.

For example, you can have a health and safety training program that includes videos and quizzes to test employees’ comprehension and compliance, or management training through a week long course that can be done from anywhere, from any device.

If you want to go really digital-first, you can implement an enterprise intranet that can be accessed remotely, where team members can even complete these training activities from their own homes, clocking on to log paid hours without having to be in-store or at head office.

3. Bring your distributed team together through social networking

According to the latest stats from the Australian government, there are over 1.2 million people employed in retail, with a median age of 32 years.

Social networking is a part of everyone’s lives at this point. The average is 32 years of age who is across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

Utilising social media for your customers is a given, but what about leveraging this tech to connect your distributed team? They’re probably already connected to some of their immediate team on other platforms, but team-wide social media (aka enterprise social networking) that’s completely managed by your business can help identify trends among team members and the connections they make.

A study from Queensland University of Technology highlights that enterprise social media in retail helps foster collaboration and innovation under the right organizational culture.

Your social network can be explorable for team members by store, role, state, size… and then you can gain insights into how and when your intra- and cross-store employees interact.

We are social beings by nature (particularly customer-facing retail employees!) so don’t skip over this avenue to enable your team to connect.

4. Instant sharing of advanced theft techniques

According to an investigation by The Australian, theft in the retail sector accounts for around $9.5b in losses across the country.

Keeping on top of the latest shoplifting techniques can be tricky, as thieves get more advanced in their approaches. Theft at self-checkouts is a particularly relevant issue to target as more stores rollout this tech around the country.

Instead of a weekly briefing about innovative theft techniques across your stores, with an intranet, team members can upload theft incident reports as they happen, so all stores know instantly and can be on the lookout.

We’re all also aware that internal theft can be a major cause of shrinkage. Advanced internal theft techniques can be disseminated to management across stores – or with the wider workforce if you choose.

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Have your team collaborate and communicate the way they already do in their personal lives

Having a mobile intranet is critical to ensuring your workplace remains at the top of the desirable retail employers list – and keeps up with employees’ expectations in the digital space.

Having a mobile enterprise intranet allows for instant communication, enhanced collaboration, innovation, and insights into your workforce across your Australia-wide team.

Implement a news-checking policy for staff, that they log on and have a browse of the latest and greatest on your intranet while they’re on shift, but not on the floor. Get yourself out of that mindset that checking a phone or tablet is wasting time or needs to be done off the clock.