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Retail business intelligence data is critical for survival in the industry. Gathering and analyzing data from POS systems, customer feedback, and marketing efforts can lead to increased sales and efficiency. Real-time analysis is necessary for success in today’s retail environment.
Since most retail stores operate on extremely tight profit margins, acquiring the right kind of retail business intelligence data is critical to survival. Business Retail Intelligence is the gathering of information from point-of-sale (POS) promotions, real-time POS computers and logs, and simple answers to customer question. Most retail businesses have no problem collecting all of this data. The problem is that most companies don’t have the skills to understand this. Information is useless unless it can be analyzed and then used to increase sales and drive greater efficiency.
Retail business intelligence starts with having the right systems in place to collect the right amount and type of data. Collecting and delivering this data to the right people within the organization is also critical. Once retail business intelligence data is provided, BI experts quickly begin reviewing and interpreting it. Effective retail business intelligence provides insights that can be used to make changes in the performance of individual retail stores, advertising, marketing, and even supplier product delivery.
Some retail businesses adhere to the old 80/20 data analysis rule, whereby a company spends 80% of its time collecting and organizing data and 20% of its time actually analyzing that data . For example, it took a retail company five days to collect, analyze, combine, and interpret retail business intelligence data. This means that it took at least five days to respond to the data and make the necessary changes. In today’s real-time, computer-connected retail environment, five days might as well be five years. This company changed the way they handled BI data by combining processes into one software program that now processes all data in hours.
The most successful retail businesses know a lot about developing systems to help them win more customers, sell more products, and make more money. Most modern retail stores know exactly how a particular store performs at any time of the day, whether that store’s performance is improving or lacking in some areas, what kind of customers are visiting the store, where they live and what is likely to spend. That’s a lot of valuable information, but without a retail intelligence expert to translate it into actionable insights, it’s not worth much. Immediate response is critical to effective retail BI. Retailers who have an integrated, web-based, real-time BI software system, as well as experts who can analyze quickly and respond immediately, are likely to be the most successful.
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