Whether a customer is browsing online, checking store availability or tracking a delivery in real-time, today’s retail experience is only as strong as the digital systems behind it.

As omnichannel customers shop more frequently, spend more per transaction and deliver higher lifetime value than single-channel shoppers, expectations for flawless performance across every touchpoint continue to rise.

Through its work with retailers globally, Tata Communications has seen these rising expectations translate into a common set of challenges for technology leaders. Retail CIOs are being asked to move faster, scale more efficiently and protect experience quality even as operations become more complex.

From this work, four recurring forces have emerged that now define the retail CIO agenda. Together, these forces are known as SNAP:

• Simplification imperative
• Network as a strategic asset
• AI readiness
• Precedent-free leadership

In retail, advantage comes from how deliberately CIOs align these forces to deliver speed, scale, and experience integrity at the same time.

S – Simplification imperative

As retailers race to meet rising customer expectations for omnichannel and personalized experiences, technology estates have expanded. This creates environments that are powerful but increasingly difficult to manage.

That complexity is amplified by sustained investment in a sector where digital transformation spending continues to grow year-on-year. While essential, this investment also means critical retail workloads are increasingly distributed across platforms, environments and partners.

As Sergio Tagliapietra, VP of Information Technology at a global fashion brand, highlights: “Customer experience remains central to digital transformation, especially for legacy businesses reconnecting with customers through technology.”

For retail CIOs, harnessing simplification means reducing fragmentation, improving visibility across systems, and streamlining how data and applications connect across the business – enabling agility without sacrificing stability.

N – Network as a strategic retail asset

In today’s real-time retail environment, the network is emerging as a strategic asset rather than background infrastructure. It underpins real-time inventory visibility, buy-online-pick-up-in-store models, frictionless checkout, in-store digital engagement and fulfilment updates from warehouse to doorstep.

Performance is directly tied to customer behavior and trust, with 53% of mobile users abandoning sites if it takes longer than three seconds to load. In retail, even brief delays can interrupt checkout, inventory visibility or fulfilment updates.

Harnessing this force requires CIOs placing the network at the center of technology strategy as a revenue-enabling foundation. This means prioritizing resilience, low latency and predictable performance across every channel, location and customer touchpoint.

As Rajarshi Purkayastha, Vice President of Pre-Sales for the Americas at Tata Communications, notes: “Tomorrow’s leaders in retail and banking think proactively about responding to their future customers’ needs. It’s already clear that zero downtime is an expectation, but so is top-notch performance. Connectivity needs to be robust and resilient, no matter how heavy the traffic becomes.” 

A – AI readiness

AI is also reshaping retail operations, from demand forecasting and inventory optimization, to personalization, dynamic pricing and automation. These systems promise efficiency gains while enhancing customer experience.

As retail data volumes are grow more than 30% annually – driven by customer interactions, connected stores and digital supply chains – AI workloads are highly data-intensive and sensitive to latency, making performance and reliability non-negotiable.

Harnessing AI readiness means building the right digital foundation before scaling. Success depends less on algorithms and more on whether data can move quickly and reliably between edge systems, core platforms, and the cloud – without disrupting the customer journey.

P – Precedent-free leadership

Finally, retail CIOs are navigating a constant set of trade-offs. They are expected to maintain strict cost discipline while continuing to innovate, to move fast without compromising resilience, and to invest in customer experience even as margin pressure intensifies.

Unlike many industries, these decisions play out in real time, with customer experience metrics directly influencing revenue, loyalty and brand perception.

Harnessing this force requires maintaining a clear focus on business outcomes – ensuring that every technology decision ultimately supports growth and customer value.

“Our customers are no longer looking for vendors,” says Rajesh Mongia, Associate Vice President and Global Head of Next-Gen Connectivity and Cloud Services at Tata Communications. “They are looking for partners who can co-create with them. They’re looking for someone who can help them build innovative solutions  and run technical workshops, so that they can jointly experiment with new ideas to see what will drive business outcomes.”

The foundations of always-on retail

Retail’s pace of change is accelerating. Simplification, network performance, AI readiness, and leadership must be harnessed together to drive growth without introducing friction or risk.

Tata Communications works with retailers globally to support secure, resilient, high-performance connectivity across stores, digital platforms, supply chains, and cloud environments.