BT to help Gallerie Commerciali Italia, part of Auchan Holding, show how integrated digital technology can transform in-store customer experience

BT today announced it is working with Gallerie Commerciali Italia, part of Auchan Holding, to create new digital customer experiences for shoppers in Italy.

Under a new three year contract, BT will provide Gallerie Commerciali Italia, which owns or operates 43 shopping centers and six retail parks across Italy, with a range of ICT infrastructure services, customer relationship management (CRM) and in-store solutions to prove how digital technology can grow the appeal of retail spaces and provide new business services to retailers, as well as offer an enhanced omnichannel* customer experience to consumers.

The digital transformation project will involve a range of in-store multi-sensory solutions, spanning sight, sound, smell and touch. These will change how customers and retailers interact within stores, offering new ways to engage and communicate using smart screens, mobile devices and in-store radio as well as scent diffusion.

Underpinning the digital transformation project will be a BT network, providing fixed and wireless connectivity. Gallerie Commerciali Italia will use the network to control and bring together data from digital devices throughout its malls and to provide free wi-fi for shoppers. The “big data” gathered by the network will be analysed and used to offer services to retailers to help further enhance customer experience.

The pilot phase of the project will involve three shopping centers, located in Vimodrone, Nerviano and Rescaldina, chosen to reflect the different features and sizes of shopping centers in Gallerie Commerciali’s portfolio. The outcomes of the pilot will provide insights and help fine tune the roll out of digital technologies across all of Gallerie Commerciali Italia malls, comprising 2,200 stores visited by a total of 180 million people annually.

Edoardo Favro, CEO of Gallerie Commerciali Italia, comments: "We have launched an ambitious digital transformation and cross-functional project, with Italy leading the pilot for the international group. The project aims to offer truly engaging customer experiences.

At the same time, we want to deepen our relationship with retailers, leveraging analytics to give them more insight on our visitors’ behaviors while maintaining a single governance process and close control of data. In BT we found a partner with the vision, capabilities and experience required to deliver that.”

Hubertus von Roenne, vice president, global industry practices, BT, said: "We feel very proud that Gallerie Commerciali Italia has entrusted BT with the deployment of this transformational project that shares and embraces our Digital Possible vision. BT, with its extensive retail experience and digital integration expertise, understands modern consumers’ expectations of physical store environments. These environments must offer the same ease and customised convenience of online shopping and be truly integrated with the digital world.

This project shows that digital innovations are not just for online stores. They can help personalise the customer experience of the physical store and make a visit there much more engaging and attractive, as well as increasing the efficiency of retailers."

The Gallerie Commerciali Italia project reflects wider trends in digital transformation captured in The BT CIO report 2016: The digital CIO report. The cross-sector international study finds that the business areas most keen for support on digital transformation programmes are marketing (44 percent), client relationship management (38 percent), research and development (37 per cent) and sales (36 per cent).

*Omnichannel retailing provides a consistent customer experience regardless of how a customer interacts with the retailer either through instore, online, via a mobile ap or over the phone.