At Esper, we’re on the front lines of brick-and-mortar customer experience transformation. Digital kiosks, connected point of sale, and employee handhelds for managing inventory and logistics are rapidly becoming the norm. But scaling the hardware and software innovations so many top brands are betting on to transform their retail customer experiences can introduce major bottlenecks.
A survey conducted by BDO in 2021 indicated that despite massive investment into digital transformation during the pandemic, retailers are less confident in their technological competitive advantage compared to just a year earlier (just 10% in 2021, versus 25% in 2020). While many brands are investing in mobile point of sale, self-service kiosks, and a variety of other hardware form factors to transform their retail businesses, the solutions on the market remain fragmented and difficult to integrate. How do you manage so many disparate systems? How do you control operations expense growth? What efficiencies can lower Total Cost of Ownership for these complex devices?
“To support better customer and employee experiences across our POS, tablets, and other devices, we needed a solution that worked for our next generation enterprise Android apps. Esper is a true partner. Working with them allows us to move fast, save money, and now we can make strategic decisions about what hardware to use.”
Mas Yoshida
Director, Next Gen Restaurant Technology, Taco Bell
We hear these frustrations from technical leaders and executives on a daily basis – and that’s why we offer a unified approach for deploying, managing, and supporting mission-critical devices at scale. Using the power of our new DevOps for Devices platform, Esper’s OEM and solutions partners like Lenovo can provide customers a streamlined, “single pane of glass” experience. Operations and IT teams can control policy compliance with Esper Blueprints and drift management, deploy application updates with Esper Pipelines, and even remotely debug systems from anywhere in the world. No code is necessary (though we support powerful, code-driven automation), and developers can integrate their existing CI/CD workflows to deliver software directly to the Esper Cloud.
Using Esper Architect (optionally coupled with Foundation – Esper’s commercial AOSP platform for dedicated devices), businesses of all sizes and industries can rapidly scale dedicated device counts with exceptional confidence and visibility. And they can own the process end to end: Esper’s platform makes updating a few devices in the lab as straightforward as updating 100,000 in the field, with infinite adjustability for customers to right-size deployment and update tactics to their needs.
Esper also understands transformation doesn’t happen overnight – and that it’s rarely an “all or nothing” proposition. That’s why many brands come to Esper first to simplify management of their existing fleets, only to realize Esper is how they should have approached the problem from day one. Leveraging our Foundation operating system, Esper can even bring x86 devices into the Android-compatible fold, as we’ve done for global brands like Taco Bell.
Working with Esper can take your retail and restaurant solutions to the next level (we also love the medical, transportation, warehousing, display signage, and even consumer electronics verticals). We can partner with you to develop solution kits – or even custom hardware – to deliver exactly what your customers envision. To learn more about how Esper can give you the competitive edge top retail brands are demanding, click here.
