Dell Takes Retailers To the Edge

Dell Technologies is enhancing its edge computing offering to help retailers generate greater value and deliver better customer experiences from data.

The company is acting on research it recently commissioned from 451 Research, which found that 77% of retailers expected to increase their edge deployments in the next two years. Still, they were hampered by the lack of a holistic approach to breaking down silos and reducing complexity.

Edge has long played a role in the retail industry’s infrastructure model. But the overall model is changing with the increasing use of AI and machine learning, while real-time supply chains are driving a hybrid model of edge, cloud, and centralized data centers as an approach that accommodates data gravity and low-latency.

“Retailers are increasingly relying on IT technologies and data at the edge to offer more personalized and intelligent customer experiences that drive better business outcomes, dramatically accelerating the need for retailers to bring together siloed technologies,” said Gil Shneorson, senior vice president of edge solutions at Dell Technologies.

“We’re helping retailers easily consolidate these technologies so they can analyze data where it’s created, make faster decisions, and deliver positive experiences for in-store shoppers and employees.”

Dell Technologies' edge solutions enable retailers to scale their infrastructure, optimize the supply chain, manage employee efficiency and deliver improved in-store experiences in real-time.

The Dell Validate Design for Retail Edge consolidates edge retail infrastructure and applications onto a single infrastructure stack for efficient deployment, management, and support.

With VMware Edge Compute Stack integration, the solutions provide retailers with a single management view of edge IT across all retail locations to track system health, build and manage applications at the edge and help securely scale to additional sites.

The solution supports AI-based applications, which help retailers access data insights to improve in-store shopping experiences. These include optimizing product placement, preventing product loss, tracking inventory, and assisting shoppers to avoid long checkout lines while diverting employees to where they can be of most assistance in a store.

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