Global retail specialist Smollan, representing some of the world’s most loved FMCG and commerce brands, explores the benefits that business intelligence brings to the retail industry and how innovation and operational efficiency can be key drivers for growth in this space.
Data governance, connected cloud, collaborative BI, self-service interfaces, humanizing data, storytelling, AI, chatbots, DQM and actionable analytics, are terms bandied about these days to describe the hottest business intelligence (BI) trends shaping the industry. As retail is one of the most data-driven industries globally, using BI tools to understand customer patterns and behaviour, estimate inventory needs, understand how to target new markets, and build forecasts – is the life’s blood of any retailer’s future focus.
W. Edwards Deming an engineer and statistician born in the early 1900 made the wisest observation back in the day saying, “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
BI is all about using data to reveal valuable insights and information on consumers that can be used to make informed business decisions. Achieving optimal BI requires a tech-driven process to collect, store and manage data so it is on tap in real-time and can be analysed, contextualised, and pushed forward to bring sense to a fast-paced environment, allowing retailers the competitive edge. Retailers can then make changes in merchandising offerings or quickly adjust prices. The point is, there is no such thing as having too much information, right?
Expanding this data rich information, helps create a consistent experience across all channels and by using the predictive advantage data brings, allows retailers to get ahead of ordering and making better location-based merchandising decisions. Makes one sit up when the worldwide BI and analytics software market is expected to reach 17.6 billion dollars in 2024, as reported by Statista – it goes without saying that BI can certainly benefit the retail industry. To take advantage of new opportunities to predict sales, see the market potential and understand customers on a much deeper level makes BI solutions and the data train that’s gaining traction even while steaming uphill during challenging times – a platform you want to hitch a ride on.
In an AppInventiv post earlier this year, several key benefits of BI in the retail industry were highlighted, amongst them – how it allows retail businesses to have greater control over operations as it helps keep track of what’s going on in the company and allows rapid corrections to be made where necessary; it enhances the customer experience as retailers can use customer analytics from a BI tool to understand the needs of the customer, meet their expectations and identify opportunities for improvement; investing in a BI and data analytics solution can help with inventory management and solves most stock related challenges; BI has become crucial for identifying new and emerging consumer trends allowing teams to rework pricing strategies and inventory – which increases revenue, maxing margins and boosting efficiency in the supply chain as key insights can be gained from day-to-day operations that allow retailers to create better forecast models.
It’s all about the ability to compete intelligently. Business intelligence is geared to making decisions based on historical and present data using descriptive analytics while business analytics helps anticipate future trends and outcomes.
Indicative of this growing trend is Smollan’s partnership with dY/dX a leading digital transformation consultancy, which tapped into the 400-billion-dollar FMCG packaging marketplace – developing Smartfill a next-gen smart dispenser that provides a data platform and hardware and software layers to enable package less retail and logistics. It solves key retail challenges by tapping into BI solutions such as providing consumers with an enhanced package less experience, reduced retailer cost of management through cloud-based device registration, improved logistics, access to valuable shopper data in real time all in a secure loT environment.
“For some time we followed trends that suggested that packaging-free retail is set to grow rapidly to meet demands around affordability and a consumer preference for brands with circular characteristics. By harnessing BI solutions we are able to offer an affordable, personalised shopping experience that in turn contributes to making a positive social impact to reduce environmental packaging in the mainstream market. It’s an area of the new economy this just makes sense for us,” said Michael Smollan, Chief Growth Officer at Smollan.
So to, other leading international brands have embraced BI as a game changer for the retail industry. Amazon and BI go hand-in-hand to personalise product recommendations, market products and make logistical business decisions. Simply put, in-depth data analysis is the key reason for the smooth functioning of their massive supply chain. Starbucks using retail BI software, is able to predict what purchases and offers a customer is likely interested. Retail giant Walmart uses BI to understand how online behaviour influences in-store and online activities. For instance, how many people searched a particular product and then bought it from either the app or the website same day. This way, they are able to pinpoint the busy days and the exit points in their shopper’s journey.
Everything has accelerated and none more so than retail. The evolution will continue so grab your popcorn it’s going to be an incredible ride!
