Use of analytics among retailers on the rise – survey

Many retailers are still at the early stages of using big data: Only 46 percent of retail CXOs are confident that their firm’s analytical abilities are keeping up with data volumes. Meanwhile just 36 percent believe that they have a well-defined policy for analysing the most valuable information and 30 percent admit that they are not consistently obtaining value from it.

Data delivers in coordinating omni-channel commerce: Over half of respondents say that big data has brought gains in multi-channel sales (54 percent) and has made multi-channel customer tracking and management more profitable (52 percent). But 38 percent agree that managing differing pricing and margin strategies over varying channels is a major headache.

Legal restrictions on data usage are a major concern: Two-thirds of retail CXOs say that they have increased the amount of stored information on individual customers in the past year; 64 percent of them cite legal problems with data collection as a major barrier in its effective use. Data protection laws are tied for the second-biggest impediment to making effective use of use of large amounts of data in strategic planning and decision making in general, cited by 32 percent.

Wipro