NEW YORK – In a recent article, Chain Store Age makes the case for the importance of retail innovation labs, such as the one recently announced by CVS and other retailers, including Walmart and Target. While not all retailers have the resources to support such ventures, the article proposes three key reasons why retail innovation labs are a good idea:

• Automatic Customization: No matter how flexible and industry-centric a third-party solution is, it inevitably requires customization. Developing IT applications in-house ensures that they come “out of the gate” fully customized.
• Extreme Customer-Centricity: While any reputable provider of retail IT solutions is well-versed in meeting the needs of the modern customer, they still do not have the same ground-level insight into customer expectations that retailers do. By taking the development of solutions in-house, retailers can design them to meet the needs of their own customers, the general public.
• Cloud Convenience: The relative convenience and simplicity of cloud-based technology development has greatly democratized the process of IT innovation, to the benefit of retailers. No longer does a technology development lab need to be supported by robust and expensive hardware, since most or all of the activity now occurs in a virtual environment. Cloud-based technology development also means that much smaller development teams can accomplish much greater results.