This report presents the key findings of IDC's European Vertical Market Survey, carried out in June/August 2006 in the top 5 Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.) among 169 retail and wholesale companies with more than 20 employees. The purpose of this report is to understand the following:

This study presents findings for retail/wholesale-specific solutions including:

The results are presented for the top 5 Western European countries, for retail and wholesale respondents, and for total Western Europe.

"Manufacturing Insights believes that the enhancement of customer-facing strategies and of retail profit optimization management are the key drivers to growing investments in industry-specific applications in the Western European retail and wholesale sector," said Ivano Ortis, program manager, Manufacturing Insights. "Overall, retail and wholesale respondents are indicating the strongest short-term investment plans on applications that drive supply chain execution efficiencies, while showing strong investment plans for demand-side and store operation management solutions. Going into 2007 it will be interesting to assess how the industry-specific applications investment focus would change, both on a country and retail sub-segment level, also as a consequence of raising short-term expectations on RFID and online shopping platforms."