The deployment of the omnichannel strategy: an empirical study on the retail industry

Technological innovation led to an increase in the number of available distribution channels and touchpoints, so influencing consumers’ behaviour and expectations and pushing retailers to adopt multiple-channel models. The goal to deliver the demanded, seamless customer experience across channels forced companies to question on how to integrate and synergistically manage different channels and customer touchpoints, moving toward the omnichannel approach. The omnichannel approach consists in adopting and synergistically managing a mix of several channels and touchpoints, both physical and digital, with an integrated approach, aimed at delivering a consistent and seamless customer experience across channels. The very interest of the present work is on the deployment of the omnichannel strategy rather than on its conceptualization, since the final objective is to elicit an operational framework which encompasses the relevant areas of intervention for retail companies committed to move from a multi-channel approach to an omnichannel one. Given the relative novelty of the theme, exploratory field studies were conducted on the Italian market, to capitalize on the empirical evidences emerging from a multiple case study analysis to ultimately contribute to theory about the motivations which may underlie the strategic decision to adopt the omnichannel strategy, the organizational solutions which may be adopted to lead companies through the transformation journey, the actual areas of intervention and their impact on the customer experience and the obstacles which can slowdown the pace of the process of execution of the omnichannel approach.