Verizon together with América Móvil, KT Corp, Rogers, Telstra, and Vodafone founded 5G Future Forum (5GFF)– a collaboration of telecommunications companies covering the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe to develop 5G interoperability specifications to accelerate the delivery of 5G and MEC solutions around the world.
Verizon has been in the foreground of 5G and mobile edge computing (MEC) adoption enhancing enterprise and consumer applications. In 2020, aside from establishing 5GFF, Verizon has forged partnerships with wireless providers Nokia and LG U Plus to bring the power of 5G closer to enterprises and end-users. The Nokia partnership empowered Verizon to deliver an international private 5G platform for global enterprises in Europe and the Asia Pacific region while the LG U Plus alliance made Verizon the first US operator to complete 5G global roaming trials and have a commercially ready 5G global roaming service in South Korea.
Today, Verizon Business, a division of Verizon Communications Inc., continues to ride the wave of the firm’s 5G and MEC capabilities– this time to bring modernisation to the retail industry. In collaboration with global consulting firm Deloitte and software giant SAP, Verizon has designed a retail platform to drive automation with near real-time monitoring, analytics, and insights within stores, distribution centres, and warehouses.
Sharing about the latest co-innovation, Tami Erwin, CEO at Verizon Business, said:
“It’s an exciting moment to unveil this innovative retail collaboration with Deloitte and SAP.
We are entering a new era of technology-led disruption at the exact same moment that every retailer is looking to accelerate digital transformation, increase productivity and improve customer experiences.”
5G and MEC Integration
The collaboration brings together Deloitte’s retail industry and solution engineering expertise, Verizon’s global 5G and MEC leadership, and SAP’s capabilities in transforming organisations into intelligent enterprises.
Anthony Stephan, principal, Deloitte Consulting, and US Consulting consumer industry lead, said:
“The opportunity for 5G and MEC to enable frictionless retail experiences and improve asset productivity should have a seismic impact on the retail industry.”
“Our collaboration with Verizon Business and SAP enables us to efficiently and effectively address the concerns of retailers today, providing a best-in-class digital transformation experience that can respond and deliver at the speed of 5G,” he added.
The retail digital platform integrates Verizon’s 5G network and MEC with SAP Customer Activity Repository and SAP S4/HANA to bring business performance sustainability and accelerate profitability to retailers across key business metrics such as revenue, cost of goods sold, and operating margin. Harnessing these technologies will offer retailers better visibility of in-store data with near real-time analytics and, ultimately, improve customer engagement, inventory efficiency, and staff productivity.
SAP Customer Activity Repository applications bundle is a powerful forecasting engine that provides businesses real-time inventory visibility based on a 360-degree view of customer purchase history and demand across all channels. Having a unified view of customer activity across channels significantly enhances omnichannel order management, boosts planning applications, improves the shopping experience, and increases revenue.
The new retail platform is also foreseen to have various enterprise-wide use cases since it is designed as a reference architecture that amplifies back-office application integration value and a customisable approach to accelerate outcomes and return on investment. One example of its use case is addressing out-of-stock shelf inventory management. The platform can automatically alert and communicate to in-store staff and distribution centres to manage inventory and ensure the availability of stocks.
“We are ready to open the doors to Verizon’s transformative 5G and mobile edge compute platform and look forward to helping our customers reimagine everything from their employee experience and supply chain to end-customer use cases,” Erwin highlighted.
