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Retail Business Capability Model

UC-BoK organises retail capabilities into 12 canonical domains. Each domain groups related abilities that a retail organisation must possess to execute Unified Commerce. Capabilities are vendor-neutral — they describe what a retailer does, not which software implements it.

Capability Map

  • Customer

    Manage the complete lifecycle of customer relationships.

    Identity · Profile · Segmentation · Consent · Clienteling

  • Commerce

    Enable product discovery and commercial interaction.

    Basket Management · Checkout · Catalogue Management · Assisted Selling

  • Order

    Manage customer commitments end-to-end.

    Order Management · Order Orchestration · Order Tracking · Cancellation

  • Inventory

    Manage enterprise inventory visibility and availability.

    Inventory Visibility · Reservation · Allocation · Store Inventory

  • Fulfillment

    Deliver products to customers across all nodes.

    Fulfillment Execution · BOPIS · Ship-from-Store · Returns · Exchange

  • Pricing

    Determine selling conditions across channels.

    Pricing · Dynamic Pricing · Price Lists · Markdown

  • Promotion

    Apply commercial incentives to drive conversion.

    Promotions · Voucher Management · Campaign Management

  • Loyalty

    Increase customer lifetime value.

    Loyalty · Points · Rewards · Personalised Offers

  • Payment

    Manage financial transactions across all tenders.

    Payment Processing · Authorisation · Capture · Refund · Settlement

  • Store

    Support in-store operations.

    Store Operations · Store Inventory · Cash Management · Workforce

  • Product

    Manage products offered for sale.

    Catalogue Management · Product Information · Assortment · Lifecycle

  • Analytics

    Provide business insights across domains.

    Reporting · KPI Monitoring · Customer Analytics · Sales Analytics

Domain Interaction Model

Capabilities collaborate across domains. The primary interaction flows are:

Flow From To Why
Discovery → Transaction Commerce Order Basket confirmation creates an Order
Commitment → Availability Order Inventory Order confirmation triggers reservation
Availability → Execution Inventory Fulfillment Reserved stock drives pick/pack/ship
Transaction → Settlement Order Payment Order confirmation triggers payment capture
Rules → Application Pricing + Promotion Commerce Price and promotion rules applied at basket
History → Engagement Order + Analytics Customer Purchase data feeds segmentation and clienteling
Network → Visibility Store Inventory Store receiving and stock count updates ATP

Capability Independence Principle

Capabilities must not depend on specific software products. The same capability can be implemented by multiple application archetypes:

Capability Possible Implementations
order-management OMS, ERP, Commerce Platform
pricing Pricing Engine, ERP, POS
loyalty CRM, Loyalty Platform, CDP
inventory-visibility SIM, OMS, Inventory Service, WMS
clienteling CRM, mPOS App, Associate App

Capability Maturity

Each capability is scored using the UC-BoK Unified Commerce Maturity Index (UCMI).

Level Label Definition
0 Absent Capability does not exist
1 Ad hoc Single channel, manual, inconsistent
2 Fragmented Multi-system, partial automation, not unified
3 Integrated Cross-channel, automated, consistently applied
4 Optimised Real-time, data-driven, continuously improving

Vertical-specific MVP and Best-in-Class targets are defined in the Reference Architectures (RA-001 Fashion · RA-002 Grocery · RA-003 Specialty).

References