WHITE PAPER

How Retailers
Use LTE as
Wireless WAN
to Improve
Service &
Operations

Enterprise Networking Trends

for Success in Retail

Overview
Innovation is changing retail from the storefront to the back office and beyond. New levels of mobility allow companies to reach
customers in fresh ways that extend far beyond brick-and-mortar locations — delivering a customized, curated, and seamless
experience. IoT and cloud applications are streamlining supply chains, reducing shrinkage, and improving employee productivity
and safety.

Because of retail’s digital transformation, IT teams and the enterprise networks they manage have never been more important —
or more burdened. As the role of connected technologies continues to grow and intertwine with virtually every aspect of business,
IT teams no longer are simply troubleshooters. Today they strategically define and execute a company’s most important goals.

Retailers are re-evaluating their entire network infrastructures. Of course, moving away from aging legacy networks is easier said
than done. Retail CIOs and network administrators must balance corporate mandates for speed and agility with mission-critical
needs such as security, cost savings, and 24x7 uptime. These companies also are considering the role of cellular-enabled wireless
WAN as it evoles from 4G LTE and Gigabit-Class LTE to 5G. Wireless innovation is unlocking new levels of mobility, flexibility,
network reliability, and remote management.

This white paper outlines emerging trends in retail IT, challenges posed by those trends, and considerations for choosing future-
proof edge network solutions for retail.

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Drivers for Digital Transformation & LTE in Retail

Customers Expect Tailored & Immediate Service
Legacy networks Omnichannel retail isn’t a passing fad, it’s the new industry standard. Customers
often can’t keep up don’t distinguish among the many ways they interact with their favorite retail
brands, so retailers must merge online and in-store contacts to deliver the
with the demands of
seamless experience they expect. Examples include:
omnichannel retail
strategies, the Internet —— Apps let in-store users scan product barcodes with their mobile
devices to highlight product details and buyer reviews
of Things, and the shift
—— Supply chain projects such as “buy online/pick up in store” systems
to cloud computing.
erase the lines between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar sales.

—— Shoppers can browse outfits on interactive digital signage, save size

and item data from in-store fitting sessions, then purchase those items
later from their mobile devices.

Retailers & Employees Expect Increased Operational Efficiency

Digital transformation is just as important in the back office and warehouse

as it is at the storefront. New technologies and apps improve supply chain
efficiency and responsiveness, as well as staff productivity. Further, IoT devices
can drive loss prevention and decisons based on real-time information.

For customers and employees alike, cloud computing is an essential part

of retail’s digital transformation. A wide range of data can be sent, stored,
processed, monitored, and acted upon quickly and without the need for local
servers or computers.

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Technologies, Trends & Network Requirements

Success Story
Guest WiFi
Evereve
Customers of just about every type of business have come to expect guest WiFi,
but especially in retail. Omnichannel experiences and highly interactive apps
For swiftly growing retail
drive people to use their phones or even tablets while shopping.
enterprise Evereve, intermittent
connectivity outages at stores
Retailers can benefit from guest WiFi, too. They can use splash pages to deliver
and IT manpower limitations at
surveys, gather key analystics, and provide sales announcements or coupons to
the corporate office had become
entice additonal purchases.
too cost-prohibitive. With a
streamlined support team and
Beacons many applications dependent on
connectivity, store managers felt
Beacons use Bluetooth low-energy technology to make smartphones location-
helpless as they waited for their
aware and to notify nearby devices of their presence. As a shopper moves
operations to be restored.
through a store, beacons transmit data about the device owner.

Evereve chose Cradlepoint’s

Beacons enable customers to make in-store payments from their phones, and
NetCloud Service for branch,
receive targeted advertisements and information about sales. In turn, retailers
delivered through cloud-managed
gain data about customers that can help them make informed decisions
routers with built-in LTE, to meet its
about staffing and store layout, influence buyer behavior, and customize each
primary and failover connectivity
shoppers’s experience through real-time and predictive analytics.
needs.

Digital Signage Network disruptions no longer

derail Evereve’s store managers,
Unlike traditional signs, digital signs have the flexibility and interactivity
because when connectivity at
required for effective omnichannel marketing. The ability to instantly update
a retail site is lost, LTE failover
content from a remote location, offer personalized purchase recommendations,
immediately goes into effect.
and integrate with apps and beacons makes digital signs a truly versatile
When new stores are under
investment.
construction, Evereve can get the
network up and running at the site
Even in less futuristic settings, the cost savings of reduced personnel hours
quickly and easily, configuring
spent manually updating pricing and other content can deliver an immediate
routers from a remote location.
boost to the bottom line. In an outdoor deployment, digital signs might be
leveraged to raise brand awareness or drive in-store or online traffic.
“I have confidence this is the
network solution that will allow
During peak selling seasons, such as Black Friday and during the holidays,
our business to scale as we
in-store digital signs can be used for staff training. Finding multi-use solutions
double and triple the amount
for in-store deployments will lower the total cost of ownership of your network
of stores we have.”
while maximizing your organization’s productivity.

Anthony Hoang,
CIO, Evereve

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Cloud Applications

Cloud applications and services are overtaking the world of retail

management. Here are a few examples: Consumers rank the
—— Customer service applications paired with beacons allow retail stores following as their top
to identify shoppers and then trigger customized promotions that priorities1:
employees can use to nurture brand loyalty.

—— Retail-as-a-Service, or RaaS, lets IT departments offload data to cloud

platforms rather than keeping it on-site. During peak seasons, retailers
1. Prompt
Service
can purchase more storage; then when they are ready to scale up, the
infrastructure they need is already in place.

—— Cloud applications help retailers anaylze and respond to data in real 2. Personalized
Experience
time. Aggregate information can keep store managers and sales
associates “in the know” about top sellers. At corporate headquarters,
purchasing agents use the data to make inventory decisions.

—— Retailers are losing billions of dollars each year to the “Ghost Economy” 3. Smart
Recommendations
— item returns and overstocked or understocked inventory. Inventory
analytics platforms help close inventory gaps and generate more sales.

Employee Devices

Whether through company-provided devices or personal devices that

employees are allowed to bring from home, retailers understand the benefits
of equipping staff with mobile devices to use while they move through the
store so they can provide better customer service and even complete POS
transactions before shoppers can change their minds.

Mobile devices also serve as important tools for employees to access training
portals, payroll management, and important corporate files.

Bring Your Own Network: Pop-Ups, Stores-Within-a-Store & Kiosks

Pop-up retail and stores-within-a-store have become go-to strategies for

testing products, building brand awareness, and driving sales during a finite
season or period of time, such as during a holiday. A cousin of the store-within-
a-store trend, kiosks can help drive extra revenue and brand exposure
when placed inside another brand’s retail location, or they can be
used to provide customer service, online ordering, and gift cards
inside their own stores.

1 Source Time Trade, “State of Retail 2016,” 2016.

https://nrf.com/system/tdf/_TimeTrade_State_
of_Retail_2016.pdf?file=1&title=TimeTrade’s%20
State%20of%20Retail%202016

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Networking Challenges in Retail

Success Story
Network Downtime
ChargeItSpot
In retail, downtime is money. Retailers compete to make the buying experience
smoother than ever, making even momentary downtime unacceptable. POS
ChargeItSpot provides multi-
connectivity failures can cost enterprises thousands of dollars in lost revenue
faceted value for retail stores and
and brand damage. In the case of a long-lasting outage, such as a wired-line
venues with its free phone charging
breakage of the primary connection, wired failover solutions such as T1 lines
stations. It’s a popular amenity
usually are laid in the same trench as primary wired lines — and subject to the
that is only feasible with always-
same outages.
on connectivity — and is more
palatable to retailers and other
Solutions for Improve Uptime venues if ChargeItSpot can stay
off their corporate networks. With
Reach 99.99 percent reliability with an LTE-enabled failover network, an option retailers not wanting ChargeItSpot
that’s affordable and isn’t typically subject to the same outages as wired lines. to tie into their store networks, the
This is a solution that can easily overlay the existing network infrastructure. company knew it needed LTE for
connectivity, noting the mobility,
Bandwidth Surges & Troughs flexibility, and speed it provides.

The rapid growth of applications for connected devices and opportunities Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Service
presented by increasingly connected retail environments must be met with for IoT — which includes
sufficient bandwidth and data to support the increase in network utilization cloud-managed gateways with
by both customers and company-owned technologies. Retail network embedded LTE — enables
administrators face a particular challenge in bandwidth management due secure, reliable VPN functionality,
to the varied data usage that comes from customer traffic surges and peak keeping data safe as it travels to
selling seasons. With wired connectivity, it’s impossible to instantly provision and from these widely dispersed
more bandwidth. kiosks. The stores and venues that
host the kiosks can keep their
Solutions for Bandwidth networks physically separate from
ChargeItSpot’s network.
LTE connectivity can provide the extra bandwidth needed, and can be pooled
among multiple locations to avoid data going unused. Simply choose a “We’ve had very steady
network management solution that allows network administrators to remotely connectivity, and our kiosks
monitor and adjust usage to avoid overages. have performed extremely well
in that environment.”
Security of Critical Information
Robert Kay
Already viewed by attackers as highly lucrative targets due to the massive Senior Vice President of
amount of credit card data being processed, businesses face mounting Operations for ChargeItSpot
challenges as IoT continues to grow in retail settings. Each device is another
network on-ramp and adds to the complexity of security management.

While security threats continue to evolve and employee errors continue to

threaten information security. IT departments cannot directly supervise the
network at all times. Hackers are well aware of this, and in-store staff members
often find themselves in the crosshairs of malware or phishing schemes.

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The rise of cloud-based applications in retail is another significant concern

1 in 4
for IT departments. Today’s retailers use SaaS for everything from inventory
tracking to POS. While cloud-based applications bring greater scalability,
flexibility, and intelligence, they also saddle network administrators with more
potential holes in the network.

Speaking of POS, financial institutions require that any company that stores,
retail data breaches
processes, or transmits credit card information comply with the Payment Card
Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Companies that fail to comply are involve web app attacks.2
subject to fines, lawsuits, and can even be banned from processing credit
cards. Retailers that experience security breaches often find themselves in
news headlines, significantly impacting goodwill with customers, partners, and
shareholders.

Retail IT managers must find ways to address these drivers and implement
new PCI Compliance measures without having the resources to provide
constant, on-site IT support.

Solutions for Network Security

To isolate payment data from traffic on public WiFi, digital signs and other
applications, retailers can air-gap their data via physically separate endpoints.
This tactic, called Parallel Networking, making it impossible for hackers to
pivot from their point of entry to a company’s POS applications. Another
option is to virtually isolate IoT data on a perimeter-secured overlay network
via Software-Defined Perimeter (SD-Perimeter) technology.

Moving some data off the core network is a critical piece of maintaining PCI
compliance. Another best practice for PCI compliance and protection of
direct-to-Internet traffic is to choose a network solution with a built-in firewall,
easy VPN capabilities, robust network segmentation, multiple SSIDs, content
filtering, and the ability to remotely manage updates and add on security
integrations with industry-leading platforms through the cloud.

2 Source BDO, “2016 RiskFactor Report.” 2016.

https://www.bdo.com/insights/industries/retail-
consumer-products/2016-bdo-retail-riskfactor-
report

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What to Look for in Network Solutions for Retail

Success Story
The bottom line is that retailers are selling an experience along with their
products. No promotion, sale, or gimmick can come close to a top-notch
David’s Bridal
customer experience when the goal is turning strangers into customers and
customers into loyal brand followers.
David’s Bridal needed a future-proof
failover solution for its 300 stores
As retail enterprises look for network solutions that will allow them to integrate
located across the U.S., Canada,
the cloud, big data, and the IoT into their operations, and to adapt to changing
UK, and Puerto Rico. In addition,
customer demands, there are a number of important questions to keep in
its IT team needed a way to move
mind:
beyond the one-at-a-time method
they had been using to manage
—— How reliable is the connectivity?
network devices, and move toward
—— How fast can the solution be deployed? centralized network management.

—— Does the solution enable seamless, secure network access from David’s Bridal implemented LTE
anywhere? failover across its company and
now enjoys high-performance,
—— Can my organization easily scale the network as needed? reliable backup connectivity without
reliance on wired-line failover, which
—— Can the IT department centrally manage hundreds or thousands of
can be costly and time-consuming
deployments?
to provision. Plus, the IT team can
—— How easy is remote troubleshooting? manage the entire deployment from
a central location.
—— Does the solution offer Unified Threat Management?
“With just a couple of clicks, I
—— Does the solution enable PCI compliance?
can use NetCloud Manager to
—— How does the solution handle fluctuating bandwidth demands? upgrade all 330 devices in less
than 10 minutes. That saves us
—— What is the total cost of ownership? a lot of labor and got our stores
protected very quickly.”
A growing number of distributed enterprises are finding that utilizing LTE-
enabled all-in-one edge network solutions provide the level of reliability and
Kevin Weaver,
agility they need to get an edge on the competition without sacrificing cost
Director of Infrastructure.
savings. Edge networking solutions that are cloud-managed enable even
David’s Bridal
small IT teams to remotely deploy, monitor, manage, and troubleshoot network
connections at many locations.

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Wireless Edge Services for Branch, Mobile & IoT in Retail

Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Services for branch, mobile, and IoT provide retailers with tailored services delivered through purpose-
built, LTE-enabled endpoints that include a limited lifetime warranty and comprehensive 24x7 support. Each NetCloud Essentials
plan provides the functionality needed for rapid deployment and time to value. Advanced Add-on plans allow customers to
enhance their networks with advanced management, security, and edge routing.

In branch and mobile, the Advanced Add-on plans provide increased security functionality including application-aware firewall, CP
Secure Web Filter (powered by industry-leading Webroot BrightCloud® Threat Intelligence and fully integrated into the NetCloud
service), and IPS/IDS with CP Secure Threat Management (powered by Trend Micro’s industry-leading Deep Packet Inspection
Engine). CP Secure Web Filter allows network administrators to actively protect users from web-based threats and ensure IT
compliance at the distributed WAN edge. Retailers leveraging branch and mobile services also can easily add analytics-rich web
content filtering with Zscaler Internet Security.

About Cradlepoint
Cradlepoint is the global leader in cloud-delivered wireless edge solutions for branch, mobile, and IoT networks. The Cradlepoint
Elastic Edge™ vision — powered by NetCloud services — provides a blueprint for agile, pervasive, and software-driven wireless
WANs that leverage 4G and 5G services to connect people, places, and things everywhere with resiliency, security, and control.

More than 27,000 enterprise and government organizations around the world, including 75 percent of the world’s top retailers, 50
percent of the Fortune 100, and first responders in 10 of the largest U.S. cities, rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical branches, points of
commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint wireless
solutions as the foundation for innovative managed network services. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company
headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with a development center in Silicon Valley and international offices in the UK and Australia.

Learn more about retail solutions: cradlepoint.com/retail

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