Building Digital Bricks and Mortar with Vertical Services for Retail

For the last five or more years, the IT and business services industry has been all about verticalization – as a way of going to market and building capabilities and solutions. Major service providers are ‘industry aligned’ today, seemingly bringing domain experience to effect core industry outcomes across IT services, business processes and consulting. This is certainly the case for verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance, where buyers are more mature, and as a result, so are the offerings, be it business platforms or mature process structures across operational areas. But what do these industry practices look like elsewhere where both buyer appetites and service provider capabilities may be less mature? HfS Research is currently mid-way through an exhaustive study of BPO services for the retail industry in anticipation of publishing the HfS Retail Blueprint in July. We have observed that several service providers have developed deep relationships with retailers through IT services or customer care BPO services. Where will the next level of growth in retail come from? We explore directional observations in this POV.