The Dashboard — Where Merchandising Analytics And Customer Analytics Come Into Balance

June 2012 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Peter Charness, president, Manthan Systems Americas 

Retail analytics help power decisions and profits.

How would you pilot an automobile at a proper speed if it did not have a speedometer? You could drive along, stopwatch in hand, timing yourself between telephone poles or city blocks of known distance, then calculate velocity using the formula: distance-overtime. The resulting analysis would be accurate, but it might come too late to avoid a ticket — not to mention the mayhem that appears in the rearview.

When it comes to operating retail enterprises, too many managers have been driving crucial marketing and operational decisions using a stopwatch instead of a dashboard. There is no reason why that should persist. Today’s merchandising and customer analytics take us beyond the scorecard-based measurement of past performance. They provide the ability to continuously monitor present performance and model future outcomes.