UNIQLO Malaysia Launched New Store Concept

UNIQLO Malaysia Launches New Store Concept

New model of store away from shopping mall aims to closely engage with the surrounding community for a more personal, more convenient shopping experience.

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Jretailer UNIQLO recently opened a roadside, community-based store in Bandar Sri Damansara, surrounded by residential townships, schools and office buildings. The new roadside store has a shopping space designed to accommodate some of the essential needs of the surrounding community.

Yuki Yamada, CEO of UNIQLO Malaysia and Singapore, said that UNIQLO turned 10 in Malaysia in November. “Over the years, we have developed a strong presence here with an online store and 51 physical stores in shopping malls located in major cities and towns across 12 states,” he stated. The roadside store at DA Square @ Damansara Avenue, he pointed out, is carefully designed to ensure enough space and accessibility for all, including families with children, elderly people and people with disability, and will feature its own car park for our customers.

“It will serve as a close-tohome store for customers in Bandar Sri Damansara and surrounding townships, giving locals the chance to enjoy a quick and convenient trip to UNIQLO, he added.

UNIQLO’s first roadside store in Japan opened in 1985. Malaysia is the fifth country outside Japan and the third in Southeast Asia to have a roadside concept store following successful launches of the store format in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines.

Technology – The Value Proposition

By Stan Jit Singh, Secretary-General, MRCA

“Business is About People & People is About Business” – Stan Singh

etailing has evolved R over the last decade with the advent of new technologies and its offering to allow businesses to disrupt and exist in a speedier and structured manner with newer effective capabilities.

Having said that, technology has, in the past played the role of an “Enabler” supporting business processes to establish a greater degree of accuracy in the results and outcome but this landscape is equally vastly changing overtime and today it’s no longer the case because Technology is the “Business”.

Some still believe the narrative that IT must be looked at after a business strategy has been crafted out and if this is the case, a change must occur. Today, IT has become the immediate integral part of the entire business outlay representing to be the main component in the final analysis. In addition, with the combination of newer technologies being play-out or deployed, it gives the business owner a greater chance to scale upwards and perhaps have a multi-channel or hybrid business model to cater for the vast changing business landscape having agility and alignment to the processes.

A new norm need has taken shape for the traditional retailer to reinvent taking advantage of the newer technology offerings to reach the greater plains of the Digital World or better known as the Digital Economy, and hence, the word “Disruptive” comes to mind. Today, you would undoubtedly, often hear the statement, “Disrupt or Be Disrupted”, being made by so many of us from all walks of life. What that really means is, a shakeup, change, evolve, innovate, transform and adopt to adapt newer technologies into your business to be competitive and stay relevant. It also means bridging and aligning the “Physical World” with that of the “Digital World” capturing all the pertinent data touch points that is required for business owners to make that critical business call in moving the curve upwards to reach Customers at large and more importantly, be profitable.

Furthermore, we must also remember that it’s the customer’s demand that drive changes through their lifestyle and habits and as such, a retailer cannot remain traditional in its ways to conduct business even though the road to success has been travelled before and hoping to continue this journey. As technology evolves a change is imminent and if you are not ready for that change, you will be left behind to travel the “old road” that no longer will give you the same velocity, result and impact to your business cycle. The retailer must consider all the digital avenues that are readily available to exploit and disrupt so that with the data gathered through these digital touch points it can be analyzed with predictive capabilities. Imagine what insights it can bring to the retailer and continues to exploit the digital space to be profitable and has created a new opportunity in keeping the business afloat and at the same time building the brand as well. Let me also make a cautionary statement here, in that, there is no such thing as “One Size Fits All” which remains an illusion myth and please avoid this route.

Test, check, consult, understand, review, realign and then decide what you are looking for to do and whether the technology in consideration is right for your business. Importantly have the right talent to work along side that new strategy to achieve your goals and objectives rather than shooting at a moving target, which very often is the case, and IT always get the “blame” for not doing what it was supposed to do and when things go horribly wrong. Let us look at what newer technologies are available today that will give the business the opportunity to consider, and disrupt all traditions to make that quantum leap to take the business forward in the new redefined landscape and at the same time address all business pain points and issues. At the end of the day what you need to do is to create a new tested and stable business framework that will house, the new business strategy, new technology, new talent pool, new operational methodologies and eradicate every fear and misbelief, that retailing is not just about business but it’s about technology that is driving newer found retailing frontiers when you disrupt.

Technologies for Retailing available today are: * Big Data Analytics * IoT Devices (Internet of Things) *Artificial Intelligence (AI) * Machine Deep Learning * Robotics* Conversational AI Chatbot with WhatsApp * Blockchain *Augmented / Mixed Reality * Mobility – Mobile Commerce * Internet Commerce * Cloud Computing and 5G (Retail).

In the next article, let’s demystify these technologies to bring greater understanding and perhaps consider to disrupt, reinvent and realign your business to take it to the next level.