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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.

...To create more compelling marketing campaigns, best-in-class retailers are focusing on collecting psychographic data that will complement demographic information, resulting in more in-depth segmentation, according to David Dorf, Senior Director of Technology Strategy for Oracle. Mobile and social media, he revealed, are two breeding grounds for this psychographic data. "Instead of just collecting information about age, gender and income, retailers today are starting to get information from social sites around interests and opinions to obtain a better picture of consumers," Dorf told Retail TouchPoints. While this more granular approach enables retailers to target consumers and refine marketing strategies to create more relevant campaigns, messaging and offers across channels, a lot of infrastructure is required to collect and manage all of this information. "Retailers need a full-time staff that creates the marketing messages and really engages people so that they'll give up that information," Dorf noted. "Then, of course, technology is required to process the structured and non-structured data and make something of those insights."

At tech giant Oracle, Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail, says the biggest challenge facing retailers is breaking down existing siloed processes and data stores, as in information that is stored but not used day-to-day. "Customers look at online, mobile and in-store as essentially one thing - the brand they are interacting with," Webster says. "Retailers must align their business to meet this reality. Successful analytics initiatives require data from every part of the business that affects the customer experience. So it is not only online, mobile and in-store, but also supply chain and promotions."

Today's analytics enable retailers to understand what's happening across channels, from inventory availability to what and how customers are buying

For retailers, the answers to many of their most pressing questions lie in Big Data - the volumes of structured and unstructured data generated across the gamut of customer interactions. The good news is that the answers are there.

With the addition of Oracle Retail Insights and Oracle Retail Science, Oracle is now a "one-stop cloud shop"; with 17 different software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud offerings available for large and mid-size retailers, explained David Dorf, Senior Director of Solutions Management in an exclusive interview with Retail TouchPoints. ..."The SaaS offerings are much more affordable for mid-tier retailers, in part because they are paying for what they use," Dorf noted. "We are now able to avail cloud science to smaller retailers."

Oracle is focusing squarely on retail agility with the latest additions to its comprehensive set of retail cloud solutions. ..."Retailers can react to the market a lot faster," said David Dorf, senior director of product strategy at Oracle Retail, during a phone briefing with Chain Store Age. "Retailers do not have to focus on mundane IT tasks, but the retail business itself. They can also obtain access to more features and functions faster, with automatic upgrades in the cloud."