Harnessing Data Can Drive Omnichannel Efficiency

One retail fulfillment center needs to count pallets of merchandise stacked to the ceiling to meet the surge in online orders that has come during the pandemic. Another needs to keep workers socially distanced. And with more shopping moving online every day, all retailers need real-time updates on consumer habits that seem to be evolving rapidly.

With those and other demands that have arisen in the past year, managing omnichannel commerce has become more challenging than ever. And as the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. That’s why data that lets retailers measure — and therefore manage — omnichannel enterprises has become critical.

Omnichannel retailers today face a flood of data, not just in volume but in variety and speed. Analyzing and understanding that data is key to meeting increasing customer expectations online and offline, but doing so fast enough to achieve actionable insights is difficult. And those not keeping up run the risk of making less-than-optimal business decisions.

In addressing that challenge, standard data analytics methods are no longer enough. Not only can they be agonizingly slow, but they also can lead to mistakes. Instead, companies need to use comprehensive business intelligence (BI) systems that can extract every last drop of value from customer data and do so quickly.