What technology will retailers be spending on this year? Martec International’s IT in Retail Report, sponsored by JDA, uses information from 150 IT directors across the retail industry on their plans for IT investment in 2013.

Not all of the news is good – IT spend this year will only be 0.9% of total sales, down from 1% in 2012 and 1.1% in 2011. But investment still continues, and below we detail chief information officers’ main priorities for the year.

  1. E-commerce and m-commerce was the top priority for 21% of the retailers quizzed. It’s the second year it has topped the list - before that store systems were always the highest priority.
  2. 10% of retailers said store systems are their main priority for the year. There is likely to be a particularly high rate of replacement activity for store systems this year, with a quarter of retailers planning to upgrade or replace systems such as EPOS systems or store communication systems.
  3. Supply chain systems are also a priority, with 6% planning to invest in them this year. Asda, for instance, says improving the supply chain is its second most important IT priority this year, after lowering costs.
  4. Integrating systems is another core concern, with 6% of retailers planning to prioritise work on this. Much of the work retailers need to do to improve their multichannel offer relies on integrated IT systems, so that different parts of the business can communicate and work together more effectively.
  5. Marketing and CRM is a core goal for 4% of retailers. This might not sound high, but Brian Hume, managing director at Martec International, says  CRM has increased dramatically in importance – two years ago, it wasn’t in the top 10 but it’s now the 5th most popular priority. “Lots of retailers have databases,” he says. “But they don’t necessarily know how to get insight from them.”
  6. PCI DSS Compliance is top of the agenda for 3% of retailers, as is cost cutting, which is top for another 3%.

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