Retailers who are thinking of moving to Cloud computing should read the latest whitepaper from Microsoft, Driving Revenue and Innovation in Retail with Windows Azure. The Whitepaper provides solution scenarios along with workload patterns for these scenarios and examples from the industry.
Momentum is building around cloud scenarios applicable to retailing by enabling business agility at lower cost. Microsoft has made a strong commitment to cloud computing to help retailers connect with consumers whenever and wherever they choose. Windows Azure provides a platform and a set of services that can be used individually or together. It is a flexible and interoperable platform that is use to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based service-oriented capabilities.
There are business-enabling benefits for retail enterprises, including the ability to extend services related to products and retail offerings directly to consumers. The global reach that can be achieved will enable retailers to deliver products through vastly extended supply chains and product-sourcing approaches. A cloud computing strategy that is integrated with existing business plans will have the effect of reducing cost and increasing services to customers throughout the world.
| Solution Scenario | Workload | Description | Industry |
| Retail Demand Forecasting | On/Off | Sales forecasting, based on raw POS data, delivered as | Lokad |
| Smart Client - Store System | Broad usage | Full store system application which provides a rich user interface and offline capability. Allows retailers to quickly deploy a store system solution with no | Bedin Systems |
| Supply Chain Trading Partner Collaboration | Broad usage | B2B e-commerce collaboration that enables visibility to electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions. This system allows for insight into the trading partner | GXS |
| Consumer Promotions at | Growing fast | Promotional engine built to accept request and deliver email coupon promotions to consumers. | Outback |
| Connecting Stores with | N/A | Microsoft cloud based productivity suite solution to connect distributed users in stores with the enterprise for collaboration features delivered as a service. | McDonald’s |
| Scalable E-Commerce | Predictable | On-premise application augmented with cloud computing for tremendous scale without the cost. | Dominos |
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