Requirements, authority, and approval design when large retail companies introduce Robo Claw
Once the target operations are decided, concretize the As-Is/To-Be states, target stores and brands, input/output, reading and writing permissions for POS, EC, CRM, and product data, approvals, job responsibilities, responsibility boundaries, logs, idempotency, and KPIs.
The purpose of the Refine STEP is to document for the target operations "who automates what to what extent under which approvals." In particular, clarify at this stage the write permissions to POS/EC, approval conditions for price changes, inventory updates, customer communications, and job responsibilities between stores and headquarters. If this is left ambiguous before proceeding to the Pilot, redesign in later processes will occur.
Who This Is For
Who This Is For
This is intended for personnel in the information systems department, store operations managers, e-commerce managers, and internal audit departments who determined the target business in Discover STEP.
What You'll Decide
What You'll Decide in This Step
In Refine STEP, we document the scope of the target business, the data handled, the POS, EC, and CRM to be connected, read/write permissions, approval conditions, division of duties, responsibility boundaries, and KPIs, and break them down into requirements that can be validated in Build & Validate.
Industry Challenges
Challenges unique to large retail companies
The concept of permissions differs for each store and brand.
The existing permission operations differ for each store and brand, making it difficult to have a unified permission design.
Approval rules for price changes are not established
In many cases, rules on who approves price revisions or promotional applications are not clearly documented.
The roles of stores and headquarters are ambiguous.
There are cases where the divisions of roles between store staff, headquarters personnel, and approvers are not clearly defined in operations.
Behavior upon re-execution (idempotency) has not been considered
In some cases, design has not been considered to prevent duplicate inventory updates or customer notifications when the same process is re-executed.
Method
Implementation Steps
1. Organize As-Is/To-Be
We organize by comparing the current business flow with the business flow aimed for after the introduction of Robo Claw.
2. Define the target stores and brands
Clarify the scope of the target stores and brands.
3. Design Agents, Skills, and Tools
Design the roles of Agents required for the target business, the skills needed for business procedures, and the scope of Tools used for POS and EC operations.
4. Define the Tool Policy
Define the operations that Tools are allowed to perform (read/write, Allow/Deny) as a Policy.
5. Design the permissions for POS, EC, and CRM
Design who can reference and update POS, EC, and CRM for each store and brand, and to what extent.
6. Define approvals and division of duties
Define the approvers for price changes, inventory updates, and customer communications, as well as the division of duties between store staff and headquarters personnel.
7. Define idempotency and escalation
Define a design that prevents double updates or double sending upon re-execution, and define the escalation destination in case of exceptions.
8. Define responsibility boundaries, logs, and KPIs
Define the responsibility boundaries among AI agents, POS, EC, and humans, the operation logs to be retained, and effectiveness measurement KPIs.
Data & Systems
Data and Systems Used
Human-in-the-loop
Where Human Approval Is Required
- Clearly specify the final approvers of price changes and inventory quantity updates by position
- Clearly define the scope and approvers allowed to execute product master updates
- Obtain confirmation from the legal and security departments regarding the scope of handling member information and personal information
- Obtain approval from the Information Systems department for authorization across brands and stores.
Measurement
KPI
In the Refine STEP, define candidate KPIs to be verified in Build & Validate
Target level for store daily report creation time.
Target time required to create the daily report summary.
Lead time until approval
Time required from draft creation to human approval
Number of detected permission deviations
Number of detected operations exceeding the defined permission scope
Checklist
Requirements definition checklist
- Document the target stores and brands (including included and excluded operations)
- Define input data and output (daily reports, reports, and update contents)
- Confirm with the information systems department the POS, EC, and CRM to be connected and their connectivity feasibility
- Access rights for reading and writing are defined separately
- Approval conditions and approvers for price changes, inventory updates, and customer notifications are defined.
- Roles and responsibilities of store staff and head office personnel are defined.
- A design has been considered to prevent duplicate updates and duplicate transmissions during re-execution (idempotency).
- Escalation destinations and flow in case of exceptions are defined.
- The scope and retention period of operation logs are defined.
- KPIs used for effect measurement are defined
Pitfalls
Common Pitfalls
Postpone authority design.
If you try to adjust permissions after running first, significant rework will occur when deploying across multiple stores.
Proceed with the approver unclear
Deciding approvers by individual name rather than position will cause operations to stop during transfers or resignations.
Consideration of idempotency is omitted.
If the behavior during re-execution is not considered, there is a risk that prices and customer notifications may be reflected twice during retries due to communication errors.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Which department should lead the requirement definition?
It is recommended that the on-site responsible person for the target business and the information systems department lead jointly, and that the security and legal departments also be involved when customer-facing or external transmissions are involved.
How detailed should authority design be?
At a minimum, clarify the read/write scope at the store and brand level, and identify the approvers for price changes, inventory updates, and customer notifications. The level of detail should be adjusted according to the risk of the target business.
What is idempotency?
This refers to the property where the result does not change and is not duplicated even if the same process is executed multiple times. It becomes important in cases such as retries due to communication errors.
Shall we organize requirements, authorities, and approval design together?
The scope of the target business, POS/EC permissions, approval flows, and responsibility boundaries can be concretized through consultations on the official LP.