A recent survey of U.S. retailers by Boston Retail Partners (BRP) indicates that improving payment security, unified commerce and faster networks are some of their top IT priorities in 2015. Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) today brought that research to life with a series of videos featuring BRP Principal, Ken Morris, explaining the most important implications of this market shift for retailers.

Hughes, the world’s leading provider of broadband satellite solutions and a leading provider of managed network services, was a gold sponsor of BRP’s POS/Customer Engagement Benchmarking Survey.

One Version of the Truth
The quest for unified commerce was a surprising revelation from the survey. Retailers are increasingly seeking “one version of the truth” when it comes to understanding and influencing customers’ shopping behaviors. Unified commerce helps retailers provide a seamless customer experience regardless of where the customers are or what channel they use—in-store, on the web or on their mobile phones.

“Over the next three to four years there will be a 663% increase in the number of retailers who are going to move to this one version of the truth,” Morris said, adding that retailers are moving to the cloud to achieve their unified communications objectives. “There’s a movement afoot…to create a thinner, lean POS by moving to the cloud. It’s easier to protect one source than trying to secure a thousand and one store locations where you’re trying to protect customer information and payment information.”

A new trend toward order management is also pushing POS to the cloud. “Order management is the new point-of-sale. In other words, order management is just a point-of-sale transaction adjudicated rapidly… We’re seeing a movement of order management vendors adding a POS front end to their solutions.”

The Network is Key to Real-time Retailing
Real-time retailing is another key trend in the future of retail. Just as the banking industry learned that it can reinvent the banking experience using faster, experience-enhancing technologies (ATMs connected by a network), retailers are increasingly seeking to deliver real-time retailing as a new way to engage the customer.

The research revealed that faster, more secure networking is a key technology enabling real-time retailing and other sweeping trends in retail. “This move to real-time retail has tremendous payback. The future is this sort of ‘Amazon experience’ at the store level…When you’re standing in front of me, I have customer Wi-Fi in the store. I identify who you are. You opt in because you like my brand. I immediately know what’s in your closet. I know what you’ve looked at online. And I can present to you what you’re most likely to buy at a price you’re most likely to spend…With that comes the need for increased bandwidth,” Morris added.

Hughes sponsored the survey and produced this unique video series to help retailers better understand the need for a highly reliable, high-performance network to support these important retail trends. HughesON™ is a suite of cloud-friendly network and digital media managed services from Hughes, designed for the unique needs of distributed enterprises, such as retail. Hughes can help retailers implement cost-effective solutions addressing their security, unified commerce, and real-time retailing initiatives by providing the underlying WAN and in-store network needed for today’s fast moving market.

Click here to view the complete video series and survey.

About Boston Retail Partners
Boston Retail Partners (BRP) is an innovative and independent retail management consulting firm dedicated to providing superior service and enduring value to our clients. BRP combines its consultants’ deep retail business knowledge and cross-functional capabilities to deliver superior design and implementation of strategy, technology, and process solutions. The firm’s unique combination of industry focus, knowledge-based approach, and rapid, end-to-end solution deployment helps clients to achieve their business potential. For more information on BRP, visit www.bostonretailpartners.com.

About Hughes Network Systems
Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes) is the world’s leading provider of satellite broadband for home and office, delivering innovative network technologies, managed services, and solutions for enterprises and governments globally. HughesNet® is the #1 high-speed satellite Internet service in the marketplace, with offerings to suit every budget. To date, Hughes has shipped more than 4 million systems to customers in over 100 countries, representing approximately 50 percent market share. Its products employ global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU organizations, including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A, and GMR-1.

Headquartered outside Washington, D.C., in Germantown, Maryland, USA, Hughes operates sales and support offices worldwide, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), a premier global provider of satellite operations and digital TV solutions. For additional information about Hughes, please visit www.hughes.com.