In today’s retail industry, data is key. As everyone in the sector attempts to predict future trends and customer preferences in order to provide shoppers with what they want ahead of the competition, retailers can extrapolate insights from the data they hold. By using what they know about the past and present, they can prepare for new challenges.
The emphasis retailers place upon data to drive business critical decision-making has increased considerably due to the growing volumes of information available to organisations. We have witnessed a data explosion in recent times, with IBM research indicating that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the past three years, predominantly due to the rapid adoption of online media. Review sites, social networks and the embracing of digital by the media has generated vast arrays of rich, qualitative data around consumer opinions, not to mention the information collated from customer website visits. Collecting this is no longer a laborious process with the automated storage of information making the creation of a data-driven retail business environment a simple procedure.