A Sign Of IT Avoidance
Written by Evan SchumanPeer just a year or two down the retail road and the most exciting source of technological potential comes from the all-but-ignored pillar of digital signage.
This is not merely a multimedia ad-displayer. It has the potential to interact with smartphones, smartcarts and contactless credit cards. This means targeted ads with audio that can only be heard by the intended shopper, a sophisticated 2D-barcode capabilities for allowing mobile shoppers to drill deep into a Web site as well as a system that can sharply increase the scope of not only CRM systems but anti-theft mechanisms as well.
So where are the retail IT leaders in all of this? Nowhere near, as IT isn’t seriously involved in—and certainly not in charge of—most of the major retail digital signage deployments today.
Right there, in a Unix shell, is what’s wrong with corporate IT departments today.
For years, I have watched digital signage toy with fascinating technology interactions, many of which have the potential to quickly move retail analysis and customer service to the next level. And yet, I have been unable to find a single senior IT exec at a major retail chain who has said, "Me. I’m in charge of our digital signage efforts."
That task typically falls to marketing or store operations. While that’s been going on, U.S. digital signage efforts have not progressed beyond serving ads.
This is a Classic Catch-22. IT refuses to actively get involved until there’s an undeniable reason they must, such as bandwidth usage that is crashing other systems or wireless integration that directly challenges credit card or other data security.
Because they refuse to get involved, the departments that take it over—Store Operations and Marketing typically—do what comes easiest to them. And round it goes.
Many IT departments still see themselves as one step removed from their helpdesk roots, finding themselves uncomfortable with the strategic corporate role even as they aggressively push for it.
For years, companies have moved to having CIOs report into CFOs rather than CEOs. The move doesn’t necessarily signal a deprioritzation of technology issues, but it does say that CIOs often need thinking strategically.
For CIOs to get where they want to be, they must stop being content with being reactive. In the digital signage case, that means not waiting for a problem to happen that they must react to.
It also means not seeing themselves as merely a group that will solve problems when they crop up. IT leaders must look for ways they can push technology into other corners of the company, to be creative and to help CRM, security, payment and anything else.
If CIOs want to be seen as strategic, they need to start acting that way. Taking a good hard look at that TV screen on the pole holding up the roof is probably not a bad way to start.
-Marc
December 5th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Excellent Article!
Digital Signage is only one area where CIOs and IT departments can make huge impacts for their organizations.
Business Process Management (BPM) is another.
Typically, IT gets involved after a business unit has already taken the charge to locate and select a solution. And then they want to start over because they were not involve from the beginning.
What a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
If CIOs and IT departments were more engaged with the organizations strategic initiatives, and were involved earlier, everyone would be better served.
BUT, I bet you get some nasty e-mails and phone calls from CIOs and IT personnel on this one.
Oh well, I for one feel you are correct and that in the end, CIOs would be better served, as would their companies, if they became more strategic and proactive.
In the end, they are the ones who will be required to support and integrate the digital signage solutions with the rest of the organizations internal systems. Unless, of course they would rather see this as one more function that gets outsourced to consultants and integrators who are not afraid to take it on.
Keep up the great work!
December 5th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Mr. Schuman has some good points. First, that the emergence and potential of digital signage as a strategic application is transformational. Second, that it will be imperative for IT to step up if the technology is to realize its full potential.
As a solution provider in the space, I have to take responsibility, along with many of my competitors, for part of the current situation. We have taken the path of least resistance, and focused sales efforts on marketing and store ops functions. At the same time, I have personally beaten the drum about the importance of the integration of digital signage apps with other strategic retail systems. It is hard to imagine that occurring without a cross-functional team led by IT driving the bus.
So it is fair to say that forward-thinking vendors must push to have IT at the table, not just as a gatekeeper of bandwidth, but as the champion of standards, integration and execution. If the IT leaders in retail heed the words of Mr. Schuman put digital signage on their strategic application map, and force their colleagues in marketing and store ops to think beyond the obvious, innovation will be the result.
Ken Goldberg
CEO
Real Digital Media