Mobile Blueprint 2.0
The fast growth of mobile adoption in retail has driven the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) release of Version 2.0 of its Mobile Blueprint, which provides updates to the original document published in July by the Mobile Retail Initiative (MRI).
MRI brings together the collaborative strengths of NRF's IT standards division, ARTS; digital division, Shop.org; marketing division, RAMA; and NRF's CIO Council to provide the retail industry guidance in successful use of mobile in marketing, commerce and internal operations.
“A number of new companies contributed to the second version,” said Richard Mader, executive director, ARTS, who chaired the effort. “Each company provided additional perspectives to make the Blueprint the comprehensive guide to mobile in retail.”
Version 2.0 includes:
• A revised executive summary describing the latest mobile retail trends and applications of value along with a maturity model that forecasts how mobile will continue to impact the business of retailing.
• A significant improvement to the mobile payment section that describes more than 35 alternative payment methods, the potential impact of mobile on chip and pin (EMVco) security and the expected growth in the number of NFC contactless phones enabling expansion of the use of mobile wallets.
• An expansion of the operations section to describe new mobile POS applications including digital receipts that holds the promise of “mobile self checkout”.
• A revised Implementation Strategies section that describes how cloud computing and other new technologies can accelerate implementations of secure mobile services and drive down costs.
The Blueprint, which according to NRF contains the best thinking of more than 30 companies, will be one of the foundations for MRI educational webinars and conference tracks throughout 2011.
The Mobile Blueprint Committee is comprised of representatives from 39 retail and industry partner companies. For more information and a complete list of participating companies, visit www.nrf.com/mobile.