Retailers largely lack on-site security and IT expertise

A new Cybera survey of more than 50 retail professionals found that many retailers lack the necessary IT staff at the store level to ensure proper solution implementation and security.

Key findings

• More than two-thirds (66.7 percent) of respondents report being challenged by growing complexity in past application deployments
• Nearly one-quarter (23.5 percent) of survey respondents have zero IT or security staffers on site at the average retail location
• Point of sale (POS), payment authorization and payroll systems were the most commonly deployed applications, according to respondents
• Surprisingly, just ten percent or respondents with 1,000 or more locations cited inability to scale as a challenge in past application deployments.

“Distributed retail enterprises depend on technology to help them provide consistent customer experiences and support critical back office processes across tens to thousands of locations,” said Cliff Duffey, President and Founder, Cybera. “Often working with little to no IT staff at retail locations, getting applications up and running and maintaining security is a widespread challenge that can add additional cost, time and complexity to projects.”

“As retailers depend on a growing number of applications to support everything from payments to loyalty and surveillance in their stores, finding a reliable and scalable deployment solution will become all the more critical,” added Greg Garten, CTO and Executive Vice President of Engineering, Cybera.