Fewer and fewer retail executives are ignoring the development, implementation and maintenance of event risk and business continuity programs. Viewed as a competitive differentiator and a process to protect against market share loss, retail business continuity programs are evolving to address a wide variety of events that have availability and reputational risk elements (i.e. product recalls, product tampering, employment practice accusations or workplace violence at a specific retail location).
Most retail business continuity programs address the following critical business elements:
- "Typical" corporate support processes (i.e. human resources, payroll, accounting, investor relations, etc.)
- Product management / buyer processes
- Warehouse/Distribution Center operations
- Call centers
- Credit management (in-house credit support)
- E-business support
- Marketing
As with other industries, technology is very important, and key customer-facing or customer-support technologies that must be addressed include:
- Point of sale
- Payment authorization
- Inventory management
- Batch processing / scheduling
- Wide Area Network