Channel Integration Towards Omnichannel Management: A Literature Review

The evolution of technology and the constant digitalisation strongly influence how consumers behave, how markets develop, and how companies and consumers interact. By offering many channels, companies attempt to react to these developments. In recent years, researchers as well as practitioners have proposed omnichannel management as the best approach to offer several channels. An omnichannel strategy enables consumers to use channels seamlessly and interchangeably and experience the channels uniquely. However, reality looks different: many channel management approaches coexist in practice, and in research, terms to describe different concepts are used without clear distinctions. This paper seeks to eliminate ambiguities regarding the term omnichannel management. By delimiting the term from related approaches and understanding current topics discussed by omnichannel management research, this paper creates a common basis from which to fully understand the concept. Omnichannel management has shown relevance in many areas, but particularly in retailing, marketing, and information systems (IS) research. IS plays an important role in the implementation of the omnichannel approach because obstacles are often technology-related and companies are strongly dependent on information technology (IT). To move research on omnichannel management forward, this paper proposes directions for further research.