1. June 2012
A New Retail Paradigm: Solving Big Data to
Enhance Real-Time Retailing
Data from Aberdeen’s October 2011 report, Business Intelligence Analyst Insight
Enhancements in Retail, indicates that for 62% of retailers, escalating big data- Aberdeen’s Insights provide the
related complexities within their enterprises makes day-to-day decision- analyst's perspective on the
making and creating a single view of the product and customer an arduous research as drawn from an
task. The problem is not just data aggregation but also lack of real-time aggregated view of research
access to customer and business information. This impedes customer- surveys, interviews, and
centricity and business process continuity. Another roadblock for retailers data analysis
is also the volume, sources, complexity, and velocity of data. Aberdeen's Big Data in Retail Defined
latest April 2012 survey of 50 retail enterprises shows that 70% of retailers Big data in retail and consumer
are currently grappling with, on average, at least eight disparate sources of markets refers to the overall
business and customer data (both structured and un-structured) within their size or extent of active data an
organization. Such data variability fluctuates quite a bit due to seasonality, organization stores, as well as
number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), and types of customers. the size of the data sets it uses
for its business intelligence and
The collection and analysis of customer and business data, from its raw form analysis. Big data is also used to
of analytical data to its polished form of predictive Business Intelligence (BI) describe the common
helps to increase precision and real-time retailing. This includes: product difficulties associated with this
innovation, supply chain, pricing, customer engagement, promotions and active data: size or extent
marketing, and other value chain areas. The benefits associated with real- (storing and accessing the data),
time and precision retailing can be realized at every stage of the cross- speed (how fast the data must
channel retail lifecycle - from product design stage to customer fulfillment, be captured, processed,
and loyalty creation. This Analyst Insight addresses the aforementioned analyzed and delivered),
complexity (the sophistication
complexities and benefits, and identifies a best practices roadmap that
and level of detail in the data
enables companies to apply big data initiatives for real-time customer analysis), and types (the
engagement and agile operations. Four main issues are also addressed: number of different formats the
• Cross-channel impact of big data data takes).
• Consumer pressures and organizational challenges surrounding big
data
• Capabilities and enablers to tame big customer and business data
• Actionable recommendations for overcoming big data complexities
The Cross-Channel Impact of Big Data
For today's consumer, who has multi-faceted channel and shopping
preferences, retailers need to be prepared at all times to provide one view
of the customer and product across all channels. However, this has not
been easy for a majority of retailers. The need for addressing big data is a
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and
represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
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