From September to December 2001, Gartner Consulting conducted phone interviews with 375 retailers in the United States and Europe to examine their intentions of implementing an MRS. One-third of the study's respondents have an MRS in place while 27 percent are in the internal-discussion phase. Fourteen percent have already initiated discussions with technology vendors.
The survey showed that the company Web site tops the list of upgrade plans. Forty-five percent of respondents plan to replace, re-engineer, upgrade or develop systems in this area. The next most popular targets for upgrade were point-of-sale systems, database management systems and in-store devices, as each of these categories was selected by 39 percent of the respondents.
As far as systems' importance to company retail operations was concerned, point-of-sale, with 67 percent of the respondents' vote, ranked number one, followed by supply chain/logistics management with 13 percent, customer relationship management with 11 percent, and merchandise planning with nine percent.
Moderator Comment: Has developing a multi-channel strategy become a competitive prerequisite for retailers?
The immediate need for a MRS varies by trade channel. Eventually, however, it will become a basic requirement for competing for the consumer's share of mind and wallet. [George Anderson - Moderator]