Impact of RFID on Retail Supply Chains

This assignment delves into the significant influence of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology on retail supply chains. Students will analyze how RFID enhances efficiency, boosts profitability, and improves overall firm performance within the retail sector. The assessment involves examining relevant case studies and research findings to understand the practical applications and benefits of RFID implementation in modern retail environments.

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IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES

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Contents
IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES.............................................................................................4
USAGE AND VALUES OF ICT IN TRAVEL AGENCY..................................................4
QUESTION 1......................................................................................................................6
RETAIL BUSINESS OPERATION............................................................................................6
OZ SUPERMARKET BASIC BUSINESS OPERATIONS.......................................................6
RECOMMENDATION 1............................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATION 2............................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATION 3............................................................................................................8
QUESTION 2......................................................................................................................9
CUSTOMER SERVICE..............................................................................................................9
CS1............................................................................................................................................10
CS2............................................................................................................................................10
CS3............................................................................................................................................11
CS4............................................................................................................................................11
CS5............................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................13

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IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES
USAGE AND VALUES OF ICT IN TRAVEL AGENCY
Travel agency has the major business function and operation of purchasing
and assembling of varied and huge components for the travel and sell the same
products that are well packaged. Packages are standardised and repetitive, usually
at single price. It should provide the services of one stop shop for all kinds of
travellers. Discounts are offered through bargaining power. They should have an
easier and faster access to the market with well known brands, especially for taking
over the financial risks (Xiaoqiu, et al., 2003).
The operations specified can be very well performed with ease and in much
reduced time, by employing the information and communication technology. So,
the use and values of the information and communication technology enables the
travel agency, with the following.
1. Enhances Productivity
The productivity can be enhanced as multiple elements and multiple
customers can be handled simultaneously, with widened capacity of
operating the business functions. The regular productivity can be literally
multiplied with the ICT employment.
2. Improved capacity management during holidays
Tourists are increased during holidays and the capacity management of
increased or sometimes multiplied number of travellers with the information
and communication technology. The same increased bandwidth would still
be able to provide the transport and accommodate more number of travellers
with instant access to the vendors, through internet and other ways of
communication.

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3. Reduce the costs of transactions
The cost of employing the information and communication technology is
usually, more at the initial stages and usually reduced further, limiting with
the annual reneawals. Eventually, the cost of transactions can reach to n
numbers, since the expense is usually annual plan, rather than the cost per
transaction or travel. Eventually the cost of transaction can be reduced to a
great extent, as the travel agency can increase the profits, by increasing the
transactions, without paying for each of the transactions.
4. Reduce the cost of workforce
Since most of the operations of the travel agency business would be
performed over the internet, with instant booking, online transfers, the need
of the workforce is reduced to a great extent. So, the ICT allows the travel
agency to minimize the cost over the workforce, such as the telephone
operators, labour cost, etc.
5. Improved service
ICT enables the travel agencies to improve their services to their customers,
by informing all the relevant information, with very nominal and much
reduced expense to the agency. It allows them to update the information time
to time to the customers, increasing the count of the satisfied customers.
ICT allows the travel agencies to better link with the tour operators,
establishing electronic links, so that the information handling costs can be reduced
and speed of transfer of information as well as retrieval can be increased to a better
extent (Shanker, 2008). The market intelligence data can be shared among them
that give great opportunity for dynamic packaging, dynamic pricing and yield
management. The technology allows the agencies to monitor the progress of
booking and the productivity on daily basis as well as annually.

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QUESTION 1
RETAIL BUSINESS OPERATION
The history of the retail shops is a long way back and the development of the
retail industry is in fact initiated from the rude booths. The existing retail industry
has been growing so rapidly that reaches to the huge multi-storeyed shopping malls
that adds up the entertainment elements as a process of scaling up the retail
industry. Though the transformation from rude booths to the present huge shopping
malls has taken centuries, from the beginning, the present rapid and advancement
of the technology has added multiple elements to the retail and has made it a multi-
faceted.
Every retail business has to go through the decision making in two
dimensions, managerial and strategic. It needs to make use of the conceptual tools,
to stand and survive in the competitive environment.
OZ SUPERMARKET BASIC BUSINESS OPERATIONS
The OZ SUPERMARKET is a retailer store, in which the business
operations are performed with advanced technology, involving RFID. The retail
store is a chain store, contains the products of stationery and household that are of
non-perishable. The objective of the advanced and RFID technology by the Oz
supermarket is to reduce or nullify the checkout time, which becomes an important
and tedious task for every customer.
PayWave technology has been introduced completely, as bill payment is
done through credit or debit card, by assuring the same that the customer is
allowed entry at entrance with the card. During the shopping, the customer picks
up any product or item, it is queued for payment automatically. In case the same
item is removed from the cart, it is deleted from the list. Payment is done, while the
customer is leaving from the store. The payment is done by the RFID technology,

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while the customer exits the store, from the formal exit. So, it stands as a potential
opportunity for the business, to perform the billing effectively and automatically,
with less and lesser, saving hundreds of working hours in a month. The customer
feels their time is respected as precious.
Customers, who have no credit or debit cards would enter the store with the
PayWave cards. These cards are issued to the customers, such as tourists, children,
before the entrance of the store, by depositing a small amount of cash, temporarily.
The amount of bill is reduced from the cash deposited. If the cash deposited is
lesser than the bill, an alarm rings automatically. If the cash deposited is more than
the bill amount, the remaining amount is either recorded or optionally can be used
for the future purposes. These customers can exit the store, just like the customers,
entered with the credit or debit card. Summary stations are used and placed in the
store strategically, so that the list of the items wished to purchase are viewed
clearly, present in the trolley.
Peak hour parking rates are set higher than the parking rates, at non-peak
hours. During the peak hours, parking time is counted in minutes.
The RFID technology adopted in the Oz supermarket retail business
operations, it becomes an additional expense to the business of the store. The
expense incurred is planned to collect from the customer overhead, from the peak
business period.
RECOMMENDATION 1
Automatic retail stores become the part of the store. The customers are
provided with the self-service with small kiosks. BOPIS (Buy-online, Pick-up-in-
store technology is established in the store, for a win-win benefit (Chang, 2011).. It
helps the customers to be well-known about what products are available and
waiting for the purchase. It makes the in-store sales team easier and effective in
sales, since the customers have increased familiarity of the students.

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RECOMMENDATION 2
The technology replaces thousands of workings into two digit working
hours. The customers are more inclined to spend their time in retail business,
looking for the favourable products and exploring their features, rather than
spending time in queues for payment, etc. So, RFID technology can be introduced,
to fasten various processes. RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) technology
makes use of the electromagnetic fields for tracking and identifying the tags,
automatically, which is attached to the objects Shin, S., (Eksiogly, 2014). It can
store and read the information that is stored electronically, through radio waves.
The technology is adapted in the retail industry for item level tagging. It enables
the self-checkout process and electronic article surveillance.
RFID is used for inventory systems, to fasten its process. The technology
helps preventing the diversion of the retailer products, either accidentally or
intentionally. Each and every product is tracked exactly and to discover what
products are sold at full discounted prices, through the supply chain. Major
benefits of the RFID involve increased retail cycle velocity, improved inventory
management, efficiency of operation of the store, integrated business model.
Subjectively, the business operational factors, such as accuracy of the inventory
can be increased (Bartlett, 2008). Reorder cycles can be optimized, out-of-stocks
can be reduced and multi-channel capabilities are improved.
RECOMMENDATION 3
Convenience store model is executed for the OZ SUPERMARKET retail
business. It provides speedy checkout for the customers, who wish to buy the
products, for which they are clear with quality, quantity and brand. It provides
small amount of merchandise (Collins, et al, 2010). The price of the products in

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this store is a little above average, however, the cost of the price is normal during
Sundays and public holidays, because of the increased flow and so increased sales
of the retail products. These stores can be very useful for the consumables that can
be purchased immediately.
QUESTION 2
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service is not a challenger, rather an opportunity to grab and scale
up increased chunk of the market, covering from local to global customers.
Analysis of the customer is done in various dimensions, such as demographic,
profile, psychographic profile, geographic profile, market segmentation, attitudes
and values. Though the habits of the shopping is an important input factor for the
customer analysis, the shopping habit of the customers can be very well influenced
by the retail industry itself present in the specific geographical area.
The customer service and its decisions and quality is usually based on the
accuracy and close to perfectness of the customer analysis (Christopher &
Gattorna, 2005). The basic definition of the customer service is the sum of
elements and acts, allowing the customers and consumers for receiving their
desires and needs from the establishment of the retail.
The degree of customer service varies from one level to another level and it
is usually based on the technology available and affordable and also over the
education levels of the customers, in the specific geographic region. Having
assumed that the customers of the retail business OZ SUPERMARKET are well
educated, good customer service can be provided much effectively and in potential
ways.

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The customer service of the retail business OZ SUPERMARKET ensures
that the products can be exchanged within six months after purchase of the
product. The customer has to provide the bill number and product name and the
product has to be not damaged physically. If the customer is within 3 kilometres of
distance, the product can be exchanged right at the address of customers, as the
exchange executives reach the customer, with the product to exchange (Hill, 2004).
CS1
Toll-free Customer Service
A toll-free number is provided to the customer to inquire availability of the
product, exchange of the product, technical support and any other issues with
billing. The toll free number is active and in operation, during the working hours of
the Oz supermarket. During the non-working hours, there are no executives
available. However, the contact numbers recorded in the phone would be retrieved
and called back to the callers, in the following working day. It can increase the
customer satisfaction and improve the retention of the customers to a great extent.
CS2
Customer Service for the Old
Customer service can also be given in terms of assistance to pick up the
items during the shopping. Not all customers visit every rack in the mall and pick.
Some of the customers are very specific about the items they want as some of them
even list out the items required in a paper also. The old people, who want to get the
items that they have listed can obtain the list of item by special customer service.
Sales assistants are employed over the floor to help the customers, who are at old
age. They pick up the list of items the customer wants and get all the items
collected in the shopping cart. Then the shopping cart is given to these customers.
These customers can save a lot of time, as it can save a lot of energy of them. The

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same sales assistant can also help the customers over the floor, in locating the
items they want. They can give additional information of features of the new
products to the customers, when they are not collecting the items for the older
people. The sales assistants can help the customers at the floor, to perform various
activities related to shopping (Koh, et al., 2006).
CS3
Special Discounts
Each and every customer is given a voucher, at the time of billing and
exiting the shopping mall. The value of the voucher is proportional to the value of
the bill paid by the customer. So, if the billing has a higher amount, the voucher
would also be at higher with more value otherwise it would lesser. There is a lucky
draw taken for varied and different slabs of the price of the voucher. Each of the
lucky draw winners would win discounts. The range of discounts start from 25%
and it would be offered to the customer in three different values, 25%, 50% and
75%, of their billing. The validity for this lucky draw can be given from the day of
lucky draw to six months, after this date. The special discount increases the
retention of the customers, as the discounted customers would most probably visit
the shopping mall, without fail.
The special discounts can also be offered seasonally. The special discount
offers can be given for new year, yearly festivals, local festivals. In addition to
these seasonal discounts, the lean seasons can also be targeted. When these special
discount offers are offered in the lean season, the customers keep visiting the
shopping mall, more frequently. It increases new customers, while customer
retention is increased to a better extent.
CS4
Shop Cards

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Shop cards are offered for every customers, after the billing process. It
should be offered to the customers, who are not hurry and who are interested to
explore the offers provided to the customers. The shop cards are updated with the
billing amounts the customers make every time. The updates are done manually, by
the billing operators, at the master exit of the shopping mall, as the total billing
operator cost should not be increased. The shop cards are updated every time the
customer visits and makes bill. The shop cards increase the credit points, according
to the value of the total billing they made, after taking the shop cards. The credit
points made by the customer allow the discounted price on the billing to the
customers.
CS5
Children Playrooms
Children playrooms are set statistically, at the entrance part of the shop. The
children would be allowed here to play here and spend their time, while their
parents or guardians continue shopping. The age of the children starts from 3 to 12
years. It improves the flow of recreational shoppers, as they tend to spend more
time in the shop and buy relatively more value of products. It eventually increases
the total sales of the shopping mall. Basic information of the child, such as name,
age and contact numbers are to be registered in the shopping mall. It increases the
customer database and the RFID technology helps monitoring the tags of the
children in and recorded. Each of the RFID tag code of the child starts, while a
child enters this playroom. The life of this tag would be ended, after the child
leaves the playroom (Shin & Eksiogly, 2014). The overall flow of the customers
increases eventually.

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REFERENCES
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value based pricing. Industrial Marketing Management, 34(2), 115-121
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stocks? A preliminary analysis. Fayetteville, AR. University of Arkansas,
RFID Research Center, Information Technology Research Institute.
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developments: Management briefing. Just-Style, 22-23.
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industry: Issues and Critical Success Factors, Journal of Shopping and
Research, Vol. 13.
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profitability in retail supply chains, The Journal of Applied Business
Research, Vol, 30, US.
6. Bartlett, R. (2008). Going private but staying public: Reexamining the effect
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Knowledge management, supply chain technologies and firm performance.
Management Research Review.
10.European Commission Joint Research Centre. (2007). RFID technologies:
Emerging Issues, challenges and policy options

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