Retail as we knew it no longer exists. Consumer behavior has changed in a completely irreversible way over the past decade due to easy access to information about products and services anytime, anywhere. This true digital empowerment is redefining retail, requiring companies in the sector to quickly and continuously adapt to an environment where customer experience is paramount. The key to achieving this goal and innovating lies in the strategic use of data.
Deeply understanding the buyer, their consumption habits, and anticipating their needs is mandatory, the so-called ‘Customer 360’ view. Especially with the convergence of physical and digital shopping channels in an increasingly omnichannel strategy, consumers expect a seamless and integrated experience, regardless of where they are shopping. And this is an unparalleled opportunity for those who know how to use data and analytics strategically.
Retailers need to carefully analyze their business data and every interaction with customers. Information about online browsing behavior in e-commerce and interaction history (which may or may not end in a purchase) are some examples that can reveal important patterns of each consumer. However, this analysis is not easy, as the amount of information collected daily by retailers is huge and comes from various sources, from service channels, apps, and websites, to heat maps solutions and flow analyses within stores.
Gathering and structuring all these data in a cohesive and accessible way is one of the greatest challenges faced today. To create a complete view of what consumers are seeking, it is necessary to overcome this information fragmentation. By integrating all data, companies begin to transform raw data into valuable insights, enabling faster, more assertive, strategic, and customer-focused decisions.
But it is not enough to just integrate data. It is essential that the foundation of the information has quality and governance. These data need to go through several stages to ensure their integrity, privacy, security, and be as up-to-date as possible, available in the correct detail for the correct user. This process ensures that data is contextualized, organized, and can be used effectively as a powerful tool. These actions directly impact business performance, and by not giving proper importance to this process, with low-quality data and poorly governed, the retail ‘business’ will certainly face problems throughout operations, reflecting directly on the result.
Playing a crucial role in the current supply chain, physical stores are transforming and functioning as experience centers for buyers and logistic hubs, going beyond simple points of sale. During high-demand events, such as Black Friday, where the ability to handle the enormous sales spikes and highly effective logistics are put to the test, the need to act with integrated, governed, and quality data is even more evident.
It is worth noting that the properly analyzed data must be democratized and cannot remain centralized in their original silos. Store employees need access to real-time contextualized information so they can optimize processes for more efficient management and make faster decisions directly with the customer, on the shelf or in the back office. This way, there is greater integration across the entire retail chain, from the store to the supply chain, with effective control of inventory, logistics, and rapid and efficient distribution, making end-to-end shopping experiences differentiated.
The utilization of large amounts of data, coming from various sources, enables the sector to adopt more informed measures, reducing waste, improving customer service, and maximizing margins. This new era in retail has real-time automation and analytics as the basis of operations, with the customer at the center of strategies. Therefore, the path to a successful future in the sector involves extracting data from the silos they are in, integrating operations, and integrating analytics into the decision-making process. Retailers who embrace this approach will be able to structure and organize this complex data ecosystem to generate value for businesses, building a stronger and lasting relationship with their buyers, as well as keeping up with the changes and evolution of the market towards Omnichannel Retail. This is what will determine success in the current competitive landscape.
By Cesar Ripari, Director of Pre-sales for Latin America at Qlik
