Group items tagged

Making better business decisions requires retailers to break down silos between company divisions, and deliver scalable predictive tools that allow managers enterprise-wide to sift through mission-critical information.  Chain Store Age talked with Andrea Morgan-Vandome, VP retail strategy and solution marketing, Oracle Retail, about how retailers can use new BI tools to make it happen.

"It's become mission critical to understand what is going on across the enterprise and why it is happening," Morgan-Vandome explained. "To make this a reality, each different line of business user needs to get a perspective of activity impacting all divisions." Nine out of 10 C-level retail executives reported that their organization is collecting and managing an average of 98% more business information than two years ago, according to a recent survey conducted by Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif. And the sources are ever-growing. For example, 43% of data stems from customer information, 33% from operations, and 30% sales and marketing, according to the survey.

Oracle vp of retail strategy Andrea Vandome: A new generation of mobile analytics is at the forefront of change this year. We are emerging from three consecutive years in which consumers adopted smartphones in record numbers and used them to bridge desktop and in-store shopping. Retailers are moving quickly catch up. Recent advances in business intelligence, among them the ability to tap multiple sources and deliver to a mobile device in real-time, place line managers on more equal footing and equip them to better engage the omnichannel shopper.

How can retailers meet the needs of distinctly different fashion consumers? It takes more than the traditional "arts" of planning and merchandising, though these are still vital to any successful strategy. Today there's also a pressing need to apply science to multiple aspects of fashion retailing and solutions are readily available.

How can retailers meet the needs of distinctly different fashion consumers? It takes more than the traditional "arts" of planning and merchandising, though these are still vital to any successful strategy. Today there's also a pressing need to apply science to multiple aspects of fashion retailing and solutions are readily available.