Industry trends affect how small and medium-sized retailers do business
The pandemic caused an unprecedented shift in commerce. Customers want more retail experiences that are contactless, flexible, and online.
Small and medium-sized retail businesses that adapt can better serve their customers. For example, businesses that rely on in-store sales might offer virtual, appointment-based shopping sessions or product demos.
Meanwhile cyberattacks are growing in complexity and frequency, meaning retailers must find ways to keep up with industry trends while also staying secure.
79% of retailers believe technology helps small businesses compete1
$188,000+ is the average loss per cyberattack for small business owners2
60% of small businesses fold within six months of a cyberattack3
1.Retail Industry Problems & Challenges, Squareup.com, May 5. 2018
2.Warning: Your small business may have already been hacked, Verizon, 2012
3.60 Percent of Small Businesses Fold Within 6 Months of a Cyber Attack. Here’s How to Protect Yourself, Inc., May 7, 2018
Business challenges for small and medium-sized retailers
Quickly adapting to the new retail landscape
Retailers need to implement rich, remote experiences, like the ability to show/demo products and meet customers and suppliers virtually, to meet changing customer needs. This can be challenging for small and medium-sized retail businesses with limited technology resources.
Staying ahead of costly cyberattacks
Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and common. Being able to protect sensitive information like customer data and pricing details from hackers enables small and medium-sized retail businesses to focus on selling to their customers—but many may lack the security know-how
and resources.
Employees need secure and flexible work environments
With more retail employees working remotely from various locations, it’s crucial to find ways for them to work together, chat, engage with customers, and access business information easily and securely.
Enable secure growth for your retail business
Get the flexibility and peace of mind you need to help your retail business succeed with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. With easy-to-use productivity tools and comprehensive security features, you can get work done and help protect yourself from cyber threats.
Manage your retail business in one place – From creating business forecasts to meeting with clients or suppliers remotely, get it done with an easy-to-use and secure platform.
Help protect your small or medium-sized retail business – Defend against hackers and help prevent accidental data leaks with built-in privacy and compliance tools.
Empower teamwork wherever your team works – Bring employees together in one place to meet, chat, call, and collaborate—while providing better security across your devices.
Compliance solutions process more than 5 billion document classifications each month.
As compliance regulations continue to evolve, effective data management requires a tool that evolves with these changes. Microsoft helps to automate compliance management to help keep your customers’ data storage up to date.
Streamline and simplify your business with a single, secure platform
Engage more with shoppers and keep up with their demands
Microsoft Teams can help you expand beyond in-store sales to provide the online experiences customers want by giving you ways to engage with them virtually, such as offering digital shopping appointments and product demos over video calls.
Focus on growing your business, not on managing IT
With Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Teams, you can help employees work together and support customers in different locations. Advanced security features like Information Rights Management can help control their access to sensitive data, like credit card information.
Enable employees to work where they want
Allow your sales teams and associates to safely connect with customers and coworkers, whether on the go or at the office. Give your employees the freedom to demo products, make a sale, and support customers wherever they work with mobile device management features that allow you to remotely configure security policies across company devices.
Defend against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats
Reduce your vulnerability to cyberattacks
Small and medium businesses are the new frontier for hackers1. Using the advanced threat protection tools available in Microsoft 365 Defender can help you detect and respond to cyber threats, like ransomware, earlier—reducing the risk of sensitive data like customer payment details being stolen.
Control who has access to your information—and who doesn’t
Enhance the safety of your information and lower the chance of accidental data leaks by controlling who has access to pricing details, inventory information, customer lists, and more with security features like custom permissions and password expiration policies.
Increase protection across devices
Make it safer for your remote employees to handle sensitive information like customer contacts, copyrighted material, and payment details on their devices with mobile device management features, which can help keep devices secure by remotely applying security policies, or even wiping company data from stolen devices with Intune.
Give your employees the tools they need
Connect teams across locations and enable secure remote work
Empower sales teams to get more done—from anywhere. Whether they’re chatting on their phone, delivering product demos on a personal device, or reviewing sales figures in the store from a work PC, you can create a centralized, secure hub for teamwork with Teams.
Share and edit work files safely on the cloud
Keep sensitive documents like sales reports and pricing information off vulnerable laptop hard drives with OneDrive for Business, and give trusted employees the ability to access, edit, or collaborate on the latest versions in real time with automatic sync.
Empower employees to meet customer demands
Give your sales associates the flexibility they need to deliver high-quality digital retail experiences for customers, like virtual fitting sessions or responding to their questions wherever they are. Teams provides easy-to-use text and video chat to help engage with customers, and they can share files safely with other sales associates using OneDrive for Business, with additional security against hackers and viruses through automated threat protection.
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