Plan and prepare for Microsoft Cloud for Retail in 2024 release wave 1

Important

The 2024 release wave 1 plan covers all new functionalities planned to be delivered to market from April 2024 to September 2024. In this article, you'll find the product overview and what's new and planned for Microsoft Cloud for Retail.

Overview

In the 2024 release wave 1, Microsoft Cloud for Retail is set to introduce additional capabilities while strongly focusing on enhancing existing in-market solutions. The investments will focus on the following solutions:

• Store Operations Assist: Efforts will be directed towards fostering synergy and integration with Modern Work frontline worker applications. This includes addressing customer feedback and incorporating requested features to optimize the user experience.

• AI store assistant: The focus here is to empower retail store employees to get answers to their questions from the retailer's knowledge base and automate task creation for colleagues. Store employees can use Q&A using unstructured data such as documents and automatically create tasks using voice or text inputs.

• Smart store analytics: The objective is to integrate Smart Store Analytics with Microsoft Fabric, elevating data analysis capabilities. The aim is to empower users to navigate complex data, interpret patterns, and derive valuable insights, thereby enhancing the analytical capabilities of the solution.

• AI shopping assistant: Investments will be made to advance personalization features for consumers. This entails refining and expanding the capabilities of the AI shopping assistant to provide an even more tailored and personalized experience for users.

• Retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric: The focus is on expanding and improving retail-specific connectors, AI, and machine learning functionalities. Additionally, investments will be directed towards incorporating generative AI models, providing flexibility in retail data model deployments, and seamlessly adopting new features introduced in Microsoft Fabric.

Through these strategic investments, Microsoft Cloud for Retail aims to not only deliver new capabilities but also create substantial improvements to existing solutions, ensuring a comprehensive and enhanced experience for its users.

Updates to Microsoft Cloud for Retail 2024 release wave 1

Investment areas

Application and copilot template for store operations
Retail workforce management aims to provide data-driven experience to retail employees and help increase store efficiency. The features under this workstream come together to enable both store leaders and store associates to drive insights from store operations data, collaborate effectively on store tasks, and improve store compliance. Copilot template for store operations brings generative AI capabilities for retailers to improve productivity. For instance, Retail data solutions-based analytics dashboard on Fabric will allow store leaders to get data-driven insights from store operations, and links unfurling feature on Teams will help store employees collaborate better. This release wave will introduce capabilities that would bring data and insights into the flow of work and improve the efficiency of store operations. Copilot template for store operations also connects with Retail data solutions to bring generative AI based summarized insights for store managers and enables multilingual support for retailers across the world.

Shopper and operational analytics
Shopper analytics and operational analytics are two essential components that contribute to the success of the retail business. By collecting and analyzing data, retailers can gain valuable insights into consumer behavior and optimize internal processes to achieve their goals.

Shopper analytics involves the collection and analysis of data related to consumer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns. By studying customer purchase history, demographics, and other relevant data, retailers can understand their target audience better. These insights help tailor marketing strategies, improve sales techniques, and enhance the overall customer experience. By leveraging shopper analytics, retailers can make data-driven decisions to drive customer satisfaction and increase revenue.

Operational analytics, however, focuses on analyzing data to optimize internal business processes. This includes areas like supply chain management, inventory management, and logistics. By collecting and analyzing operational data, retailers can identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Operational analytics empowers retailers to make informed decisions, enhance productivity, and maximize profitability.

Both shopper and operational analytics are crucial for retailers as they provide a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior and enable efficient internal operations. By leveraging these analytics capabilities, retailers can align their strategies, reduce costs, increase profits, and deliver superior retail experience to their customers.

Store Operations Assist
Retail workforce management enables retailers to improve their bottom line by driving efficiency in managing store operations. As store employees juggle between store tasks, store administration, and addressing customer needs, it’s important that they have a single-pane view of what they’re supposed to do. As part of this release wave, we continue to strengthen our Teams and Store Operations Assist journey, allowing store managers and associates to collaborate on tasks and manage store operations from Teams. Additionally, Store Operations Assist will also allow store managers to plan shift-based tasks and offer support for employees to move between stores.

Use retail data solutions
The retail data solutions initiative stands as a crucial strategic undertaking for us. Our primary goal is to empower retailers in acquiring, organizing, and analyzing retail data, providing them with the ability to extract valuable insights. As part of this initiative, we are committed to significant investments in developing connectors for various lines of business applications, such as Blue Yonder Supply Chain Planning, Adobe Commerce, and external/partner data sources.

In addition to connector development, we are implementing features like IDM Refresh and introducing case-based IDM installation capabilities. Simultaneously, our focus is on identifying and collaborating with independent software vendors and system integrator partners. This collaborative ecosystem will actively contribute to enhancing capabilities built on the foundation of retail data solutions.

To learn more about the entire set of capabilities being delivered during this release wave, check out the release plan for Microsoft Cloud for Retail below:

Check out the release plan