Business situation
When Unilever Brazil wanted its customers to explore their vision of the future of retail, the company didn’t just talk about what that might look like. With Avanade’s help, they actually built it.Every year Unilever Brazil hosts its biggest clients for intimate, one-on-one exploration sessions at an event called the Joint Business Plan, taking place in their expansive customer innovation centre.
For the 2016 event, the company wanted to explore the exciting possibilities of omnichannel retail, and such things as micro moments, mobile customers, NFC payments and artificial intelligence. Unilever asked Avanade to help build this vision into a new, interactive customer journey that would give them a better understanding of the shopper and would also provide enough data to understand customer behaviour and improve the approach, products and trade marketing actions.
“The Joint Business Plan for 2016 was a huge success. We’ve achieved our goal on presenting a new approach for Brazilian retailers for the shopper experience. We saw a general acceptance on everything presented there.”
Solution
Avanade designed, developed and delivered the end-to-end customer journey, relying on our deep expertise of Microsoft technologies, omni-channel retail experience and an agile global delivery team.
From a smart phone app, to NFC payment devices, to giant interactive displays and beacons inside the store built at Unilever’s venue, Avanade’s solution validated Unilever’s vision and delivered on several fronts:
- A brand new way to shop
- An elevated supermarket experience
- Intelligent targeting and analytics
Results
Avanade’s interactive retail experience was an eye-opener for many of Unilever’s clients, leading to many fruitful discussions and plans for the future. The shopping list app, for instance, received glowing reviews and is now in actual development. The app will be customised and branded for specific retailers, which gives Unilever yet another level of value to their clients.
Unilever set out to test their hypothesis about the future of the supermarket. With Avanade’s help building an immersive customer journey environment, they validated their vision and have started moving forward with a solution that will totally transform the shopper’s experience – as well as the business models of retailers into the future.