Would you build a house without a proper foundation? Most of us wouldn’t dare, but that’s exactly what many retail businesses are doing today.
When building a house, if you don’t get the foundation right, paint, wallpaper and fixtures won’t matter much. It’s no different in the retail industry. Success stems from a solid foundation of decision insight built from customer, merchandise, supply chain, employee and operational data. Your business depends on reliable, understandable data you can act upon.
Retailers implement new bells-and-whistles technologies daily to improve interactions with consumers in their quest to reach the omnichannel summit. But trying to keep up with that type of technology is overwhelming and draining. Each new technology brings new data, which adds to the flood of data already in the retail environment.
Much of the data you need to build a solid base is already at your fingertips. But are you putting that existing data to use? Some steps you can take to get the most out of the data you already have include:
- Data Management – Includes data integration, data quality and data governance to create a single source of the truth.
- Analytics – Use analytics to uncover insights for better daily decisions.
- Decision Management – Ensures decisions are made consistently.
Like houses built more than 100 years ago and updated with modern amenities, your retail business will be ready to implement new technologies and stay ahead of your competition…when you get the foundation right.
Learn more about SAS Analytics and Data Management.
