It’s interesting when the untraditional take on the very traditional retail sector keeps repeating itself with aplomb. Throughout 2016 we’ve been identifying and publishing key retail tech trends on our retail blog. We’ve observed several themes repeat themselves month on month. Nevertheless, the opportunity to gain competitive advantage through the use of trending technologies has catapulted this industry into the limelight.

The numerous security breaches involving personal data have only served to raise the level of distrust that citizens harbour towards businesses and the public sector at large. It is therefore essential for government organisations to avoid security lapses and mitigate these risks by putting in place checkpoints such as Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions. IAM solutions are pivotal in addressing security concerns, ensuring that citizen data is secure and used solely for legitimate purposes by authorised individuals.

We’ve come a long way from the days of trading cattle for grain, haven’t we? Moving on from the barter system, we graduated to exchanging notes and coins, and now, to biometrics for digital payments. Payment verification technologies are expected to make quantum leaps in technology every decade. So, the day of the sci-fi sounding human wallet dawning upon us doesn’t seem very far.

The UK government’s ‘digital by default’ agenda is here to stay. It is a long-term proposition aimed at providing easy to use, accessible public services. As the dependencies on ICT continue to increase, government departments have major IT changes planned.

Paper pushing at Whitehall has, interestingly, taken a turn for the better. Spurred on by the UK government’s deficit-reduction programme, it has moved to the digital world, as civil servants increasingly collaborate, record and report online.

It’s not uncommon for supply chain analysts to lose sight of the wood for the trees by diving deep into the data at their disposal whenever retail supply or availability issues are raised. Alternatively, Supply Chain functions may retain their own team of reporting experts specifically to address this need. While it is a given that the designated analysts will do their best to respond to the issues at hand, conducting a thorough and often complex investigation can be the only way to confirm what remedial action should be taken.