The Christmas decorations have come down, the seasonal sales are over, and the last of the holiday inventory has been liquidated or returned to the warehouse. As retailers evaluate their success (or lack thereof) during the 2003 holiday season, many already are asking, "how can we do better next year?"

Working with Microsoft, outsourcing giant Accenture has developed some answers. At the National Retail Federation conference in New York last week, Accenture and Microsoft unveiled a number of "smart retailing" solutions that could be seen in stores as early as this fall.

The new tools, which include new processes and architectures authored by Accenture, as well as radio frequency identification (RFID) championed by Microsoft, are designed to help retailers personalize the shopping experience and differentiate themselves from competitors.

Among the tools is a Shopping Cart Assistant that allows shoppers to scan and pay for items as they are selected, bypassing checkout lines. This technology, which runs on a TabletPC using Windows XP Embedded, analyzes input from the user to help a retailer predict a customer's shopping list and offer discounts and coupons tailored to the individual shopper.

A new Store Manager Workbench gives store managers access to information on inventory, employee schedules and sales data through a TabletPC or PDA that leverages Microsoft Office. The idea is to use wireless technology to increase the mobility of managers, making it easier for them to stay on the shop floor to help employees and customers.

Through Avanade, the joint venture company created last year by Accenture and Microsoft, retailers can gain access to a set of architectural and design frameworks that may speed the implementation of retail IT technology. The frameworks are designed to help retailers reduce the time necessary to develop store-based technology solutions, diminish the complexity of store applications development projects and simplify application maintenance. The new frameworks could help eliminate retailers' complaints that current retail IT solutions are too complex or time-consuming to implement.

Finally, Accenture and Microsoft unveiled new Microsoft-based RFID - or "silent commerce" - applications that can be embedded throughout the retailer's operations, such as at the dock door and on shelving units. These "smart" systems could decrease errors in inventory handling, cut labor costs, and improve inventory and receiving accuracy and speed.