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Key Microsoft technologies supporting Microsoft Cloud for Retail

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The following section highlights key Microsoft technologies and solutions that support the use cases/scenarios of Microsoft Cloud for Retail. These solutions are built on capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Fabric. Any solution with dependencies on other apps might require active licenses.

Cloud for Retail solutions

Application template for store operations

Application template for store operations in Power Apps and Teams, alternate name Store operations, is a premium industry solution that empowers employees to perform retail-specific activities such as inventory checks, store audits, and clienteling. It also enables store leadership to manage store operations with robust analytics.

For more information, see Overview of Store operations

Copilot template for store operations (Preview)

Copilot template for store operations on Azure OpenAI Service, or AI store operations, empowers retail store employees to get answers to their questions from retailer's knowledge base and automate task creation for fellow colleagues.

For more information, see Overview of copilot template for store operations

Application template for smart store analytics

Application template for smart store analytics in Power BI, alternate name Smart store analytics, is a natural, conversational (ChatGPT-inspired) interface whereby store managers can access the insights they need to take data-driven decisions on store operations. It brings together analytics such as store KPIs, data visualizations, AI/ML insights with recommendations on store layout, product catalog, shelf placement and frequently bought together.

For more information, see Overview of Smart store analytics

Sitecore OrderCloud connector (Preview)

Bring your commerce data from Sitecore OrderCloud into a standardized format and draw actionable insights from it.

For more information, see Overview of Sitecore OrderCloud connector (Preview)

Frequently bought together model (Preview)

The AI/ML Frequently Bought Together model empowers the store or the merchandising manager to make data-driven decisions on products’ placement and promotions, based on insights on closely related products.

For more information, see Overview of Frequently bought together model (Preview)

Retail industry data model (Preview)

Plan, architect, and design data solutions for data governance, reporting, business intelligence, and advanced analytics

For more information, see Overview of Retail industry data model (Preview)

Copilot template for personalized shopping (Preview)

AI shopping assistant conversational commerce starter app enables retailers to provide rich and personalized chat-based commerce experience to their consumers using Generative AI alongside retailer's domain data.

For more information, see Overview of copilot template for personalized shopping (Preview)

Retail channel churn model

AI-based retail channel churn predictive model assesses the chance customers churn, or stop actively buying from you. After you configure and run it, the retail channel churn model assigns a score to each customer that reflects the chance they'll churn, and identifies the most influential factors on those scores. You can see which customers are likely to churn and which aspects of their customer experience weigh the heaviest on that risk, so you can plan ways to delight your customers and retain their business.

For more information, see Unified customer profile.

Microsoft Azure products and services

Improve the quality of search results by prioritizing context and relatedness to prioritize the best matches. Azure Cognitive Search gives developers the infrastructure, APIs, and tools for building a rich search experience over private, heterogeneous content in web, mobile, and enterprise applications.

For more information, see Azure Cognitive Search.

Azure Synapse Analytics

Discover powerful insights across your data with Azure Synapse that brings together data integration, enterprise data warehousing, and Big Data analytics. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless or dedicated resources—at scale.

For more information, see Azure Synapse Analytics.

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents lets you create powerful chatbots that can answer questions from visitors to your website or service. These virtual agents can also contextually and seamlessly transfer the conversation to live agents.

For more information, see Power Virtual Agents.

Microsoft 365 products

Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers

Improve productivity and engagement by connecting employees with the tools they need to do their best work. Bring people together and empower them to get more done with Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers. Invest in your workforce with simple, intuitive, and secure solutions. Optimize frontline impact with Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers.

Use Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers to coordinate communication and tasks. Assign employees to pick items with Tasks, communicate across stores and warehouses with Walkie Talkie and chat, and use notifications and Teams channels to keep everyone informed.

Use modern tools for connecting your team. Bring in-store associates and management together to streamline operations with Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers. Staff members can communicate and collaborate across multiple stores in a region, or with headquarters using the same tools and apps you use within your store. You can empower frontline workers with hardware designed for collaboration and protected by Microsoft security.

Transform your retail experience by connecting store associates across the organization. Improve cross-team/cross-function collaboration to support multiple modes of delivery such as in-store or curbside pick up when a shopper or sales associate creates an order. Empower your team with these capabilities in Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers:

  • Shift scheduling
  • Task management​
  • Task publishing​
  • Delegated user management ​
  • Inbound provisioning from workforce management tools
  • Virtual appointments

Learn more about Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers and find the right Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers for your needs.

For more information, see Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers for Retail and Frontline team collaboration

For more information, see Microsoft 365 for Retail. You can use the Frontline Worker onboarding wizard to get your frontline workforce up and running quickly in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

For more information, see Frontline team collaboration and Shared Device Mode (SDM) Public Preview for Power Apps on Android

For more about virtual appointments, see Virtual Appointments with Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers, the Virtual Appointments app in Microsoft 365 Teams for Frontline Workers and Manage the join experience for Teams Virtual Appointments on browsers, and Easily deploy and use Microsoft 365 Apps on shared devices for your frontline workforce.

Microsoft Viva

Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform that combines different modules to help people and teams reach their potential with communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 products

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management empowers employees and organizations with the ability to obtain a unified view of inventory, warehouse, manufacturing, service, and logistics with predictive analytics that turn data into insights to support better strategic decisions. This capability includes the Inventory Visibility Add-in, which enables real-time on-hand inventory change visibility tracking across all of your data sources and channels. The add-in provides a platform where all of your inventory data is collected in a central location. This add-in helps you query on-hand stock availability and shortages, avoid overselling, and better manage promised orders.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Inventory Visibility Add-in overview

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights

Mitigate risks and create resiliency with prescriptive supply chain insights—powered by AI. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights enables your business to quickly respond to anticipated or sudden changes in your supply chain. Risk insights help you better understand how internal and external changes might affect your supply chain.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management contains a suite of tools to help you meet your digital commerce needs and scale easily while supporting the latest fulfillment methods. Turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage and meet your growing digital commerce needs. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management contains a suite of tools to help you meet your digital commerce needs and scale easily while supporting the latest fulfillment methods.

This capability includes the Inventory Visibility Add-in, which enables real-time on-hand inventory change visibility tracking across all of your data sources and channels. The add-in provides a platform where all of your inventory data is collected in a central location. This add-in helps you query on-hand stock availability and shortages, avoid overselling, and better manage promised orders.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management and Inventory Visibility Add-in overview

Dynamics 365 Marketing

Dynamics 365 Marketing elevates customer experiences, allowing you to orchestrate personalized journeys across all touchpoints to strengthen relationships and earn loyalty. The Dynamics 365 Marketing app works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Microsoft Teams, and other products and allows you to make faster and better decisions using the power of data and AI.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Dynamics 365 Commerce

Enable customers and partners to buy whenever, wherever and through whatever channel they choose. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce provides the agility, flexibility, and scalability needed to drive successful business outcomes across the buyer’s journey.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Commerce.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Combine real-time transactional, behavioral, and demographic data to create a complete view of your customers. Use prebuilt or custom AI models to predict customer needs. Combine transactional, behavioral, and demographic data in real time to create a complete view of your customers. Use prebuilt or custom AI models to predict customer needs.

For more information, see Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Omnichannel for Customer Service

Omnichannel for Customer Service (Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service Digital Messaging and Voice add-on) is a robust application that extends the power of Dynamics 365 Customer Service to enable organizations to instantly connect and engage with customers via channels such as Live Chat and SMS.

Omnichannel for Customer Service also provides a modern, customizable, high-productivity app that allows agents to engage with customers across different channels. The application offers contextual customer identification, real-time notification, integrated communication, and agent productivity tools like KB integration, search, and case creation to ensure agents are effective.

For more information, see Omnichannel for Customer Service.

Microsoft products

Microsoft Advertising

Connect with your customers through meaningful, one-to-one brand experiences without compromising trust. With Microsoft Advertising, you can create and manage advertising campaigns, measure campaign performance, and track online advertising budgets and spending. And you can evaluate your ad keyword performance and develop insights for optimizing your campaigns.

For more information, see Microsoft Advertising help.

Microsoft PromoteIQ

Generate ad revenue by enabling trusted brand partners to promote products on your digital channels. Microsoft PromoteIQ helps retailers work directly with brand partners to promote products on-site.

For more information, see PromoteIQ in Microsoft Advertising.

Microsoft Clarity

See what your users want. Replay user sessions and explore heat maps to make your website work better for your customers and your business.

For more information, see Microsoft Clarity.

Microsoft Intelligent Recommendations

Drive better engagement, conversion, revenue, and customer satisfaction with personalized recommendations and insights. Microsoft Intelligent Recommendations help you:

  • Significantly improve catalog navigation and item discovery.
  • Create upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
  • Improve shoppers' experiences and product usability.

You can provide these scenarios with Intelligent Recommendations:

  • Personalized recommendations for end users: Includes a list of unique content for a specific user based on their consumer habits and interactions. Businesses can recommend products, articles, videos, and more.
  • Real-time and session-based recommendations for both known and unknown users: Each customer journey that includes new customers, can now have unique recommendations.
  • Similar items: Recommend products based on various signals (user interactions such as clicks, purchases, and views) or metadata (such as images or text). Intelligent Recommendations can recommend visually similar items in a catalog (for example, floral-patterned shirts) or show similar wine based on the description and taste notes.
  • Basket completion: Shows complementary items for users based on what is already in their carts.
  • Trending lists: With user interactions and catalog metadata, you can add algorithmically generated charts such as New, Trending, and Most Popular. These lists can highlight key items on general landing pages or home pages.

For more information, see Intelligent Recommendations.

See also