Dell Presented its Retail-Oriented solutions for LATAM

Raimundo Peixoto, Senior Vice President Data Center Solutions, with the presence of other regional executives, the company released the highlights of its latest launch on edge solutions oriented to the retail channel.

Also participating in the firm’s event were Alan Rabinovich, Infrastructure Solutions Director; Francisco Aguirre, LATAM Edge Computing Senior Principal; and Caio Candido, LATAM Edge Computing Senior Strategies; from Dell Technologies.

Peixoto explained the business opportunities that arise from Edge technology, the challenges for retailers and the main announcements related to this novelty in the market.

By way of introduction, he described the context of changes generated by the pandemic and the internal process in which the company embarked “We are in a time of transformation. In recent years, solutions have been leveraged through digital technology; We modify our businesses towards the digital world and create a simple and scalable infrastructure, with Edge solutions, PCs, laptops, notebooks, desktops, Data Centers, storage, focused on new technologies as an opportunity to provide this infrastructure as a service. In this time, we structure ourselves at a global level and transfer what has been developed to the Data Center level so that it becomes a platform to search for new opportunities in the market”, he highlighted.

The executive describes the current and strategic objective of the firm: “We are looking for new opportunities in niches such as Telcos, a segment with a lot of potential due to 5G, which will generate new applications, whether in services to individuals and companies. Likewise, we are advancing on segments such as retail, manufacturing and the plan implies generating new specific solutions with use cases, whose objective is to support an ecosystem of companies that develop software for these environments, because our objective is to enable the technologies of the future”.

This expansion strategy into other segments includes “data management, multi-cloud service delivery, and other new businesses, such as security and artificial intelligence and machine learning,” he said.

To understand the trends of the coming years and where the solutions market is headed, Peixoto shared information about the near future: “Gartner indicated that this year 10% of data is processed outside of Data Centers, whether cloud public or private”, while the projections in this segment, according to the cited report, anticipate that “by 2025 it will reach 75%” which shows “the power and the need to have agile solutions that are easy to manage and scalable in the edge. We are entering a new world.”

Faced with the growth scenario, the manager showed another projection related to this rising technology: “According to IDC, in a survey called ‘World Wide Pending Gates’, in 2022, 166,000 million dollars were invested in edge solutions, with a growth of 14.8% compared to 2021, and it is estimated that by 2025 this market will reach $274,000 million dollars. It is an important market, which must leverage Artificial Intelligence solutions, virtual reality, bring better services and more efficiency to companies and value to the business”, he said.

The response to this trend, he explains, will be “to simplify, to bring scalability, with solutions that will work in different places in an efficient and agile way. With edge technology, the number of places to develop and implement centralized or consolidated solutions multiplies. This must be done with a lot of security, both at the edge and the communication between the edge, the data center and the public cloud. It is the focus of the infrastructure that we are going to create, which makes it agile and simple for companies with edge operations.”

Thinking about retail

Dell‘s commitment to edge technology for the retail segment involves creating “a connected store experience” where the applied solution acts on a range of different issues and interactions that are usually generated within a store or business, ranging from the concept of “Smart Labels”, incorporating the concept of “digital shelf”, the analysis of customer behavior, the store’s inventory connected online to report the lack of merchandise, to the management of the self-service point of sale, where an assistant digital will guide the customer in their purchase process, among other possibilities.

“RETAIL NEEDS TO WORK WITH A BROADER AND DEFINED ECOSYSTEM FOR THE STORE CONCEPT. DURING THE PANDEMIC, CONSUMERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF DIGITAL RETAIL THROUGH ONLINE PURCHASES, BUT THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IN PHYSICAL STORES DID NOT HAVE THE SAME DEVELOPMENT AS DIGITAL STORES.

Associated with this, applied to retail, edge solutions “involve issues such as real-time data analysis and operations generated with traditional applications, inventory control, information management, use of cameras, optimizing queues at cashiers, the location of the product in the stores and that the customer can locate the products effectively”.

“THE OBJECTIVE IS TO PROPOSE THE CUSTOMER THAT, WHEN ENTERING A PHYSICAL STORE, THEY HAVE THE SAME EXPERIENCE AS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD, OPTIMIZE THEIR SEARCH ON THE INVENTORY AND HAVE EACH PRODUCT AVAILABLE SO THAT THEY HAVE THE BEST POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE.”

In reference to the analysis of the information obtained in the systems, Peixoto considers that “it serves to understand consumption trends or retail needs, which improves efficiency. We call this Industrial 4.0 evolution, which implies simplicity and efficiency in operations. The key is to ensure that the data collected is used to improve the customer experience and generate new solutions, new products and offers for the market with the data analysis that is extracted from the different branches” .

The strategy of the new edge products is aimed at the manufacturing segment, according to Peixoto, with the commercialization of a solution “that adopts the same concept as retail, but focused on an industrial plant, “where similar problems arise when capturing data, taking decisions and connect with systems.”

Regarding the security of the solutions, the executive assures: “Our entire portfolio of infrastructure servers has automation and security software. We work with a concept of intrinsic security, where all the components of the solution have security capacity, with data protection schemes.”

By way of closing, when referring to the link with partners and channels, Peixoto ponders that “everything we deal with at the marketing level is specified with our business partners, wholesalers and channels. Working with them implies a great advantage, because the channels put their layers of services there, their abilities to unite with other solutions to offer our products. Our function is to enable the solutions, test them, validate them, so that when they come into operation they are 100% ready. We work in a very integrated way with the channels”.