A recent headline in the New York Times announced that Nordstrom, the well-known fashion retailer, is opening the first of two new brick-and-mortar stores in Manhattan, just as other retailers are closing their stores. The article goes on to ask if department stores really have a future, as more and more people do their shopping online and posits that Nordstrom expects to compete by combining “cutting-edge technology with old-school, in-store service.”

Not surprisingly, the Nordstrom approach bears out one of the findings from research that Avanade and EKN did last year on the fashion industry. It showed that more than half of fashion and apparel retailers have executed a formal ‘shopper experience management’ approach as a business strategy over the previous 1-5 years, while 31% were planning to implement the approach over the next two years. Retailers are looking for ways to take the shopper experience to the next level and for Nordstrom that means combining simplified returns and order online/store pick up procedures with 16 tailors and shoe shiners on hand to accommodate customers while they are in the store.

Fashion retailers are working hard to understand shoppers’ belief systems, motivations and behaviors so they can co-create the customer experience with them – not just selling to them but building the shopping journey that they truly prefer. An important aspect of that is proactively knowing what the customer needs and then coming up with the best way to meet those needs. Technology’s part in this is to use knowledge databases and contextual information to create the best possible predictive analytics and then linking that information with real-time interactions with customers to create a seamless and productive shopping experience for both the customer and the retailer.

This sort of technology can help fashion retailers survive but to really become a leader in the industry requires a transformation into what Avanade calls an Intelligent Enterprise. This means embracing insights and innovation to connect your information, develop systems of intelligence and incorporate the huge advancements in AI, Robotic Process Automation, IoT and Machine Learning into business applications. Intelligent enterprises are more likely to realize their digital objectives while they are empowering customers and employees. For fashion retailers another part of that transformation is figuring out where and how stores fit within their broader business and brand narrative.

Our new point-of-view paper entitled, The Future of Stores: How, Not How Many lays it out plainly: “These are exciting times in retail.” The richness of retail experiences has never been greater. And, the possibilities for brick and mortar stores to be an integral part of a retailer or brand’s customer experience are limited only by their imagination, innovation and execution.