Analytics
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Now that I’m a week out from my first presentation at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the state of analytics in retail. If you missed the session you can see the slides we used here.
Big Data is Interesting But Fragmentation Matters More
The rise of new sources of insight and the associated Big Data projects are receiving a huge amount of interest from marketing and customer specialists in retail. However, this is really a continuation of the challenges and opportunities we have had for the past 10 -15 years – a fragmenting consumer base that has more ways than ever to tell us what they think and expanded options for buying.
At the show I heard again and again that the biggest issue people really face is getting data from 20 different systems, without having to wait for a long IT project to deliver the greatly hyped “720 view of the customer,” that could drive a decision.
We Can’t Wait for IT or PhDs to Solve this Problem
The single view of the customer approach may well be the right model for data management and for long term success, but with the buying behavior of consumers changing even faster and profit margins under ever more pressure, marketers, merchandizers and real estate professionals have to have both the right data AND the right analytics.
Greg Bucko of Southern States Cooperative joined me on stage in front of over 180 people (as noted here the session was so popular we had to turn people away!) to discuss getting useful analytics to identify, acquire, and retain profitable customers. One of the most important things I heard him say was that by shifting his use to Alteryx, he was able to focus on hiring people with a creative, analytical approach, and not just focus on a candidate’s ability to do scripting or build algorithms.
Retail is Coming Back
From the sheer number of attendees at the show, to the amount vendors were spending to get their attention, it is clear that a leaner, more focused retail sector is emerging. Analytics is playing a huge role in that comeback, and it is great to be a large part of that.
Retail is also a sector that is thinking hard about it’s role in the communities it serves. Having three prominent CEOs talk about community responsibility during such a huge display of capitalist fervor was a great thing to see.
Paul Ross
VP of Product and Industry Marketing
Alteryx
