Capgemini’s CornerShop: Redefining physical retail shopping in the post-pandemic environment

Evolving the customer experience

In February Capgemini, in partnership with connected experience platform SharpEnd and global media platform The Drum announced the CornerShop. Physically located in London, the CornerShop is a retail innovation store designed to transform shopping and customer engagement post-pandemic. CornerShop works as a live testing environment for brands, retailers and shoppers to reimagine the shopping experience through new technologies.

Utilizing the management consulting and digital design capabilities of Capgemini Invent and insights from research and data analysis, Capgemini will enable retailers and brands to evolve the customer experience, improve in-store operations and help customers rediscover in-person shopping with new engagement options in physical stores. TBR sees CornerShop as closely aligned with Capgemini’s Inventive Shopping offering, which addresses customer-related challenges such as new ways to engage, shop and build loyalty.

Partnering for post-pandemic retail

Overall, Capgemini utilizes advisory and digital design capabilities — some of which came through acquisitions, such as that of Idean and Lyons Consulting Group in 2017 and LiquidHub in 2018 — and Salesforce Commerce Cloud capabilities to win deals.

Last November Capgemini announced the completion of a personalized and data-driven e-commerce initiative for the U.S. website of Italy-based sportswear manufacturer Fila. Capgemini provided digital marketing, e-commerce, experience design, application integration and support services, improving the client’s ability to support online sales after the onset of the pandemic and closure of physical stores. The website, built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, also uses Salesforce Service Cloud and MuleSoft to integrate the digital ecosystem. In July 2020 Capgemini completed the implementation of a new business-to-business face mask program for Gap Inc. Capgemini created a website in less than five weeks and a solution enabled by Salesforce Commerce Cloud to help Gap quickly add nonmedical cloth face masks to its online store offerings.

Expanding its industry-specific solutions by selecting priority industries for its portfolio development, such as consumer goods and retail, improves Capgemini’s ability to address pandemic-driven challenges specific to each business and industry segment. Consumer goods and retail, which accounted for 12% of revenue in 2020 and declined 0.1% year-to-year in constant currency, is on a path to recovery from the negative effects of the pandemic. Revenue in the segment declined 5.5% year-to-year in 2Q20 and 2.4% year-to-year in constant currency in 3Q20 but increased 4.3% year-to-year in 4Q20, indicating the challenges tied to store closures, supply chain interruptions and social distancing are easing up. Transforming the shopping experience through the CornerShop will help Capgemini increase activities with retail clients as they gradually ramp up sales and open physical locations as the pandemic abates.

TBR’s coverage of Capgemini includes quarterly detailed reports on the company’s financial performance and strategies related to go-to-market, resources, alliances and acquisitions. Capgemini is also covered in TBR’s quarterly IT Services Vendor Benchmark and semiannual Management Consulting Benchmark, and the company is featured frequently in our monthly Digital Transformation reports.