Search
Generic filters
Menu

Digital Retail

Technologies and Sustainable Business Models

The retail sector is exposed to many major challenges, not only due to technological innovations and the ongoing digitalisation. With the current COVID-19 pandemic and the measures imposed, revenues for many retailers have collapsed.

Retailers have been challenged by demands for online offerings and disruptions in supply chains. Consumers are now buying a broader variety of goods online, a trend that has been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, and has resulted particularly in a crisis for the smaller and non-grocery retailers.

These are threatened by this unprecedented crisis, whereas the major online global players are growing much faster than their smaller European retail competitors.

Key drivers shaping the digital future

At the same time, traditional boundaries between sectors are fading and fundamentally disrupt the retail sector. Customer expectations have shifted, as Analytics, Big data, Virtual Reality Technologies together with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning allows to analyse customer behaviours in real time.

Individual offerings and customised customer journeys result in a customer centric approach. As in many other sector, the trend to a more collaboration approach is emerging, in which suppliers and retailers are collaborating to provide customer value.

The new digital customer is highly connected, mobile and online, willing to share experiences via social media platforms. As a result, an entire sector faces many disruptions.

Traditional sources of differentiation for retailers need to be reviewed, digital technologies utilised and new collaborative value chains of high operational efficiency established that are able to offer superior product/service value proposition.

View All Digital Retail Projects

CHALLENGES AND IMPACT

With this research cluster we aim to facilitate digital retail ecosystems and support retailers in the transformation. The concept of Omnichannel retail combines traditional offline retail with online retail using a range of digital technologies.

Established Business Models need to be revised as customer behaviour is changing.

Customers no longer prefer online or in-store purchasing but switch between channels to suit their own personal requirements.

Innovative digital technologies such as Internet of Things, Big Data, advanced analytics as well as augmented reality, novel payment systems and visualisation concepts can create a unique and individual customer experience.

We aim to create a coherent customer experience for Digital Retail by combining online and traditional offline retail to an integrated Omnichannel approach.

RESEARCH FOCUS

Digital transformation for retail requires to factor in a multitude of aspects and thus a multi-disciplinary perspective with a mix of analytical, technical and creative capabilities together with strategic thinking. The ability to collect, process and share large quantities of data has led to some fundamental disruptions in the design of business models. Aim is to create a coherent customer experience for Digital Retail by combining online and traditional offline retail to an integrated Omnichannel approach addressing the following 4 research themes:

  • Develop Digital Retail strategies with sustainable business models for the Digital Retail sector.
  • Examine approaches to increase the customer experience along the customer journey.
  • Investigate how technologies can be used to provide innovative Digital Retail services and create a unique customer experience.
  • Develop knowledge base on Digital Retail operations and analytics.

COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES

We will assist the Digital Retail sector through research and training. The research projects will develop new methods, concepts and technology implementations for retailers:

  • Facilitate an open, innovative Digital Retail Ecosystem that shares experiences, best practices and supports retailers to innovate and establish efficient and effective practices and sustainable business models
  • We research, evaluate and further develop set of Digital Technologies that can be applied in the Retail sector, these include Virtual and Augmented Reality, Analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Payment Technologies, Sensing and IoT Devices, Blockchain and Digital Security approaches.
  • We develop Supply Chain and operation models and practices that increase the efficiency and flow within the value chain and offers a seamless customer experience that is tailored to many contexts.
Strategy
Develop sustainable business models and collaboration models for the Digital Retail sector.
Technology
Assess and Develop a set of Digital Technologies that can be applied in the Retail sector to accelerate the Digital Transformation.
Transformation
Develop Supply Chain and operation models and practices that increase the efficiency and flow.
…The Covid-19 crisis has essentially changed the interactions between customers and retailers – presenting us with challenges and huge opportunities. It is a truly transformative time for retail…
Markus Helfert

Meeting the Challenge

Digital has disrupted the entire sector and provides huge opportunities for retailers.

We help to develop sustainable business models for the digital retail sector and examine approaches to create a unique customer experience along every touch point of the customer journey through digital technologies and analytics, benefiting all types of enterprises in the retail sector.

  1. Develop sustainable business models and collaboration models
  2. Assess and Develop a set of Digital Technologies
  3. Develop Supply Chain and operation models and practices

Research Agenda

  • Develop sustainable business models for Digital Retail
  • Examine approaches and Digital Technologies to increase customer experience
  • Digital Technology Adoption and Transformation Roadmapping
  • Develop knowledge base on Digital Retail operations and analytics

List of Publications:

General Public Articles
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/retail-sector-faces-transformative-moment-over-covid-19-1.4280500

 

Scientific Publications
  • Gültekin Cakir, Marija Bezbradica, Markus Helfert: The Shift from Financial to Non-financial Measures During Transition into Digital Retail – A Systematic Literature Review. BIS (1) 2019: 189-200
  • Artem Bielozorov, Marija Bezbradica, Markus Helfert: The Role of User Emotions for Content Personalization in e-Commerce: Literature Review. HCI (23) 2019: 177-193
  • Douglas Cirqueira, Markus Helfert, Marija Bezbradica: Towards Preprocessing Guidelines for Neural Network Embedding of Customer Behavior in Digital Retail. ISCSIC 2019: 35:1-35:6
  • Rehan Iftikhar, Zohreh Pourzolfaghar, Markus Helfert: Omnichannel Value Chain: Mapping Digital Technologies for Channel Integration Activities. ISD 2019
  • Douglas Cirqueira, Markus Hofer, Dietmar Nedbal, Markus Helfert, Marija Bezbradica: Customer Purchase Behavior Prediction in E-commerce: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda. NFMCP@PKDD/ECML 2019: 119-136

Researchers:

Director

Professor Markus Helfert
Digital Construction Cluster Lead

Dr Zohreh Pourzolfaghar
Digital Retail

Dr Rehan Iftikhar
Digital Retail

Dr Gültekin Cakir

Artem Bielozorov

Director

Professor Markus Helfert

Markus Helfert is the Director of IVI and Professor of Digital Service Innovation at Maynooth University. He is also Director of the Business Informatics Group at Maynooth University. He is a Principle Investigator at Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre and at the Adapt Research Centre. His research is centred on Digital Service Innovation, Smart Cities and IoT based Smart Environments and includes research areas such as Service Innovation, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Smart Services, Building Information Management, FinTech, Data Value, Enterprise Architecture, Technology Adoption, Analytics, Business Process Managem ent. Prof. Helfert is an expert in Data Governance Standards and is involved in European Standardisation initiatives. Markus Helfert has authored more than 200+ academic articles, journal and book contributions and has presented his work at international conferences. Helfert has received national and international grants from agencies such as European Union (FP7; H2020), Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, was project coordinator on EU projects, and is the Project coordinator of the H2020 Projects: PERFORM on Digital Retail.

Email:Markus.Helfert@mu.ie

Digital Construction Cluster Lead

Dr Zohreh Pourzolfaghar

Zohreh Pourzolfaghar is Assistant Professor for the School of Business in Maynooth University. She is a members of Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software. Zohreh formerly has been Research Fellow at Innovation Value Institute (IVI), Maynooth University’s digital transformation research centre. She is a senior research member of the Business Informatics Group. She is the theme lead in a project investigating the application of Enterprise Architecture in Smart Cities, funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). She has been Principle Investigator for an Industry Fellowship Programme, funded by SFI. Zohreh presented her work at international conferences and has published research in Journals and Conference Proceedings. Zohreh is also leading research within the Cost Action CA16222 (WISE-ACT), a European-wide network.  She has been thematic lead in a successful European Marie Curie PERFORM project. She is a member of the supervisory board of the EU project PERFORM, that focuses on Digital Retail. She has been awarded the SFI industry fellowship (2018) working with industry on topics related to Smart Cities and Building Information Management. She is the Co-PI for submitted H202 Techland proposal. Zohreh received her Ph.D. in Project Management in design process of building projects. Zohreh has years of experience working with project-oriented construction companies to improve organisatioanal productivity and their work processes.

Digital Retail

Dr Rehan Iftikhar

Rehan Iftikhar is a Research Fellow at Innovation Value Institute (IVI), Maynooth University and a part of the EU Innovative Training Network, PERFORM. His main research interests include digital retail, digital transformation and technology management. His research has appeared in various journals and conference proceedings including Journal of Global Information Management, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization and Journal of General Management.

Digital Retail

Dr Gültekin Cakir

Gültekin Cakir is a Researcher at the IVI, Maynooth University, Ireland, and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow in the PERFORM European Training Network, a Horizon 2020 funded project, where he is also chair of the ESR-Committee. He was involved in various consulting projects with SMEs and has a background in Business Management, Digital Retail and Information Systems. His research interest and recent publications deal with strategic and operational challenges retailers face such as the “Retail Apocalypse“, while undergoing the digital transformation process in the industry. Currently, he is investigating the strategic barriers of assortment integration while pursuing an omnichannel retailing approach. With the help of major Austrian and Irish retailers, he explores the underlying factors and new dynamics in assortment decision-making.

Artem Bielozorov

Artem Bielozorov is a PhD student at Maynooth University and a Marie Curie Training Network Fellow. Artem’s research interest are Digital Retail, Service Modelling, and Business Process Management. Artem investigates organisational capabilities and key success factors for implementation and reuse of cross-channel delivery processes in the digital retail context.

Digital Retail Projects

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.