Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry

Transcription

1 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry ABSTRACT: By Evan Krakauer As a retailer, you ve noticed how quickly your customers move across a strip mall, through your store, or even just through the check-out line; and their speed increases ten-fold online. Everyone is in a rush to get to the next place or check-off the next item on their to-do list so they can make the most of every precious minute of their day. They are moving quickly, fluidly, and with meticulous calculation. Incidentally, the speed at which your customers move through your store is directly indicative of the speed at which the retail industry is moving as a whole. Within a matter of years, retail has gone from single channel commerce to multi-channel commerce to omni-channel commerce, and now to a new and even more effective platform called unified commerce. Unified commerce takes all aspects of omni-channel commerce and fuses them into one streamlined flow everything runs from the same source, and all data is connected to that source so that useful business decisions can be made with full awareness of consumer trends. This new retail business model offers an unparalleled personalized shopping experience to customers that is so effective that 78% of retailers intend to implement it. 1 Sounds great, right? Well, there s one problem: most retailers are behind! And the difficulty of converting databases to a unified commerce model is one of the main reasons so many companies struggle to make the change. This white paper is dedicated to pinpointing the top three data challenges today s retailers face in switching to unified commerce, and how Datavail s managed services can enable you to overcome them and thrive.

2 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry

3 content Introduction... Why Unified Commerce?... Challenge #1: Prioritizing the Overwhelming Volumes of Data... Challenge #2: Breaking Out of Data Silos through Master Data Management... Challenge #3: Cross-Departmental Collaboration... Solutions... Overall System Oversight and MDM Consulting... Assessment of Existing Database Systems... Transference of Database Assets to the Cloud... 24x7 Execution of Remedial Day-to-Day Tasks... Conclusion... Case Studies... Bibliography About Datavail... 7

4 Introduction There is a fair amount of confusion regarding the difference between single channel, multi-channel, omnichannel and unified commerce, so let s first look at some simple definitions. Single Channel Commerce A retailer operating under this model exists only in one purchasing sphere, either selling products only online or only in brick-and-mortar stores. Multi-channel Commerce This refers to retailers selling through multiple channels. A company under a multi-channel commerce models sells through at least two of the four main channels: online, brick-and-mortar, mobile, and social. Omni-channel Commerce Take multi-channel commerce and enable all channels to be accessed simultaneously, anywhere, and everywhere and you ve entered omni-channel commerce. Unified Commerce Unified Commerce primarily refers to what happens on the back-end of omni-channel commerce. It refers to an infrastructure that can collect, organize, dispense, and disseminate all that data from every channel to and from one single internal source. Under a unified commerce paradigm, a shopper s information and shopping activities collected online can be available to the employee checking them out at the brick-and-mortar location or vice versa. Additionally, all information collected from all departments across the enterprise can be stored together for complete and effective business analysis. It includes the qualities of multi- and omni-channel commerce, but takes it one step further. Why Unified Commerce? Now that we ve established what each of these industry phrases mean, let s talk about where the industry stands and why more retailers should be moving forward into unified commerce. According to a survey by Boston Retail Partners, 20.4% of retailers are still stuck operating under a single channel paradigm. Meanwhile, a whopping 63.6% have stagnated as multi-channel operators, and just 13.6% have caught up with the more recent trend of omni-channel commerce. That leaves just 2.2% that are looking to the future and engaging in tomorrow s unified commerce approach. 2 But why bother switching to a unified commerce model? Well, e-commerce solutions company geocart believes that unified commerce is the wave of the future. Their article Unified Commerce vs. Omni-Channel Commerce states that, the level of service, responsive marketing and communications, and personalized experience a unified company can deliver is simply unparalleled. 3 According to a 2013 Accenture report, companies that leverage their data to influence decision making have productivity levels 5 or 6 percent higher than can be explained by other factors. 4 Yet another resource, e-book Metrics That Matter to Retail CXOs, states that the greatest returns on analytics investments will go to those retailers who focus first and foremost on business outcomes. 5 Unfortunately, based on a report released by The Economist called The Data Storm Retail and the Big Data Revolution, most retailers are lost as to how to use their data: Only 46% of retail C-suite executives (CXOs) are confident that their firm s analytical abilities are keeping up with data volumes and just 36% believe that they have a well-defined policy for analyzing the most valuable information. 6 In today s retail climate, it makes perfect sense: when your employees and executives are running ragged trying to keep up with the speed of your consumers as well as the changing trends in the retail industry, where can you find the time to execute the necessary tasks of Master Data Management (MDM) that will launch you into a more efficient world of unified commerce? This is the main concern we will reference in this paper. To start off, let s discuss the top three roadblocks you must overcome to bring your organization into a unified commerce framework. Then we ll give you a solid understanding of what Datavail can do to not only resolve those roadblocks, but to free up large chunks of your staff s time so you can focus on using your new processes and streamlined data flow to pilot your business to the head of the market. Challenge #1: Prioritizing the Overwhelming Volumes of Data We already discussed the oceans upon oceans of data you deal with every day. Even if you can effectively store and organize it, how do you wade through all of it to work out which pieces of information to analyze? This question is a heavy invader in the retail industry. Further data in The Economist s 2013 report shows that only 28% of retail respondents say they are highly effective at translating new data or types of data into Page 1 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry 2016 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

5 useful insight. 7 Additionally, this same report found that by a substantial margin, the biggest single barrier to making effective use of data is figuring out what is useful amid the overload a problem cited by half the respondents. A report released by Accenture verifies these findings. In their survey, they found that 58% of respondents admit that harvesting customer insight from data is one of their key challenges. 8 Retailers need to understand that their current data management strategies be it single, multi, or omnichannel will not be able to meet the advanced data needs of tomorrow. An IDC report in 2012 said that the digital universe will double every two years largely thanks to the availability of cheap sensors and the propensity of the always on generation to record, share, and store every moment in great detail. 9 Data, the report indicated, will grow from levels of 130 exabytes in 2005 to 40 trillion gigabytes in The power of prioritizing, analyzing, and interpreting data cannot be understated; this widespread challenge must be overcome to prepare your company for the customer expectations of the 21st Century. Challenge #2: Breaking Out of Data Silos through Master Data Management Despite what we may see in movies and on television, data no longer arrives on a CEO s desk in nicely packaged Excel spreadsheets. While there are large volumes of structured data that are easy to organize and sort, retailers now also have unstructured data from social media, blogs, s, phone calls, and other sources that are difficult to combine with structured data. In addition, there are many retailers struggling to combine information across physical store locations, online stores, and mobile apps. This sets up potential for duplicate information and fragmented data that could otherwise be combined to create useful insights. Retail industry veteran, Richard Baker, chairman of both DFS and EMEA at Aimia, pinpointed this issue when he said, Not much progress has been made in joining up different data sets that could give very valuable information to produce a 3D rather than a 1D or 2D view. The more you can cross reference data the sharper the picture and therefore the smarter offers you can provide. 10 A retailer that integrates a customer s social media, online, and store location data has more ammunition to identify the decisionmaking process of a shopper. 11 In an article published on Forbes.com, Ravi Shankar, VP of product marketing at Informatica, suggests that implementing MDM will enable retailers to approach these challenge intelligently. He says, Customer data is often difficult difficult to access, difficult to make consistent and complete and difficult to trust MDM is essential to bridging the information silos that characterize multi-channel retail operations and to overcoming fragmented and inconsistent data to create a complete and single version of the truth about each customer. Retailers are then better equipped to market more intelligently, sell more effectively, operate more efficiently and create closer and more profitable customer relationships. 12 Those who can find the bandwidth and expertise to put this framework in place will find that, as the retail industry expands and becomes even more complex, they will be most equipped to transition to unified commerce and take on new challenges. Challenge #3: Cross-Departmental Collaboration To add another layer to the data and communication problem, retailers are finding that their analytics are suffering due to a lack of collaboration across teams. Boston Retail Partners 2014 report states that retailers can no longer afford to operate from within silos, and must transform their organization, business processes, and technology if they want to align with their customers. 13 Every faction of your company from HR to Supply Chain now needs to be in constant communication so data and insights can be shared and manipulated. Unfortunately, this appears to be a daunting task. According to report Metrics that Matter to Retail CXOs, 50% of executives rank cross-business collaboration as the number one internal challenge they face. In the same report, 47% stated that the IT issues that would arise by implementing cross-business collaboration are also a top concern. 14 Ouch this means that the only problem that is as frustrating as the lack of cross-departmental collaboration is the facilitation of the solution to the cross-departmental collaboration problem! It may leave you feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place with no glowing exit sign in sight. The good in news, however, is that it appears these teams want to work together. Accenture research reported in the Metrics that Matter to Retail CXOs report found that marketers and IT professionals are eager to work together to address enterprise challenges and create exceptional customer experiences. As many as Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry Page 2

6 83% of IT execs want to interact with their company s marketing department, while 69% of marketers want to interact with the IT department. 15 Your teams not only need to be talking, sharing, and collaborating, they want to be talking, sharing, and collaborating. Companies that take advantage of this shift in internal relations will find themselves leading the pack when even more complex business scenarios become reality. Solutions We ve laid out for you the key difficulties you will face in the near future and how important it is to overcome them to make the shift to unified commerce. Now, how on earth do you do it? If you re like most retailers, your IT team is stretched thin and your management team is fighting to manage the myriad contractors as well as internal developers, analysts and DBAs currently fighting to keep your systems and databases up and running. Many of our current retail customers have found that their IT staffing suffers from high turnover, while contractors are difficult to manage and are often missing not only vital skill sets but 24x7 coverage that an always-on retail environment needs. Datavail can cover many of those bases at once, or fill in the blanks in specific high-need areas. The following are four services we can provide that can enable you to tackle the top three challenges we just outlined and join the world of modern commerce. Overall System Oversight and MDM Consulting With more than a decade of experience with hundreds of different companies, we have the ability to leverage our expertise to manage your database systems and implement MDM best practices that can launch your business forward. Datavail can bring a solution team of technology experts to work collaboratively with customer IT and business teams to help optimize data injection, organization, storage, and analytics. We can provide an overview of your processes, policies, data rules, guidelines, and assigned roles across the enterprise to implement a framework throughout the business to accomplish the following: Designate the right people to maintain information quality and security Coordinate key business stakeholders to ensure that information policies support business objectives This senior-level oversight can provide you with consistent, accurate, and complete data, improved data quality, maximized use of data in decision making, improved business planning, and improved financial performance. In other words, we can set you up with a system capable of enabling you to prioritize your data and break the data silos that block new business insights. Assessment of Existing Database Systems You may be closer to a unified commerce approach than you think; the only way to know is to bring in industry experts who have worked with the most common database platforms on the market and acquire their recommendations for implementing a more effective system. This can include a solid evaluation of what systems you re currently using, and a comprehensive report containing key insights, short- and long-term database recommendations, optimization opportunities, and information on alternative database approaches to your environment. Datavail s database assessment services will enable you to execute your plans for success with precision and confidence. A typical database assessment includes discovery interviews to connect with staff involved in the design and implementation of the database environment, documentation and analysis of what is learned, and a detailed overview of the current database environment. We can then produce: A detailed view of the current database environment Recommendations for improvements and efficiencies for the current database environment, both physical and virtual Performance improvement recommendations of the current database environment Recommendations on how to approach DR alternatives Allow us to help you make the next step towards 21st century commerce with a comprehensive database system assessment. Identify data anomalies and fix them Optimize business processes and define data rules Page 3 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry 2016 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

7 Transference of Database Assets to the Cloud The top three retail challenges of 2016 can be greatly eased by simply moving to cloud-based technologies. Remember when that thing called the internet came out and promised to consolidate mountains of information into one globally-accessible source? The promise of the Cloud is very similar, making it an essential step towards the kind of collaboration necessary for unified commerce. According to experts at Boston Retail Partners, Cloud computing is the quickest and surest path to enabling next-generation store systems. The speed and agility of cloud computing gives retailers a solution to support the ever-increasing dynamic and complex needs of back-office commerce solutions. 16 The 13 th Annual Store Systems Study 2016: Retail Technology Spend Trends produced by Retail Info Systems News reveals that, overall, retailers say that 26% of software spending in 2016 will be on cloud-based solutions. 17 The Cloud simply offers too many benefits for today s retailer to ignore. Datavail can manage all aspects of your cloud migration. We can perform the necessary legacy database upgrades, configure your set-up, launch cloud applications, or take over your entire cloud management strategy. Our Vice President and Practice Leader of Oracle Services, Patrick Gates, says that, the goal is having a database that is agile and capable of providing useful information to the business such that they can achieve operational efficiencies or gain a competitive advantage. 18 If streamlining operations and achieving data-based teamwork across your enterprise is in your strategic plan, Datavail can help you take this crucial step. 24x7 Execution of Remedial Day-to-Day Tasks Some of the most tedious, but most important, tasks for which DBAs are responsible are centered around preventative database maintenance. These projects can lead to slow system performance and poor response times when neglected. However, they are timeconsuming and eat away at hours that could be spent collaborating with other departments on data analysis or streamlining the data channel flow. Every retailer knows these mundane functions must be executed, but how can you make the broad changes that need to take place to move past omni-channel commerce if your team is buried in maintenance activities? Datavail s expertise in a variety of databases means that we can take on these projects on a 24x7 basis via a combination of affordable onshore/offshore teams. Whether you re working with Oracle, MySQL, SharePoint, SQL Server, DB2, or MongoDB, we can perform health checks, tuning, backups, archiving and more. These services open up valuable man hours your team can use to stay focused on organizing your data, sharing analytics across teams, and using the resulting insights to augment your business. If you re going to take the leap into unified commerce, you ll need all-hands-on-deck. One strategy that can enable you to tackle the top three retail challenges is to let us take care of the small stuff so your valuable onstaff employees can tackle the projects that will make a greater impact. We ve got the resources and we can implement them at a cost-savings; take advantage. Conclusion With today s customers demanding a harmonious shopping experience with integration across all brand touch points, switching to a unified commerce business model is more important than ever. Accenture s 2014 report states: Today s non-stop shopper wants and expects to move seamlessly across channels in pursuit of that perfect dress, that latest device, that ultimate experience. In today s fast-moving markets, a seamless retail experience is becoming a prerequisite for any retailer that wants to remain relevant. 19 With a little help from your friends, you can accomplish the biggest challenges that this new model presents by implementing changes that can enable you to prioritize data, break out of data silos, and collaborate across departments. Take the guesswork out of your IT operations. Bring in Datavail to give you the expertise, assessments, and cloud services you need to move into the world of unified commerce, or take advantage of our day-to-day services to keep your systems running 24x7 so your valuable hired brains can work on getting to the bottom of your organization s top three toughest data challenges. Whichever path you take, these improvements will put your company in the position to lead your hurried and harried customers through a wholly personalized, smooth, and pleasurable shopping experience. A unified commerce platform is the new imperative for handling orders, fulfillment and inventory across channels in real-time, says Ken Morris, principal at Boston Retail Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry Page 4

8 Partners. Retailers still have a long road ahead to achieve a successful unified commerce platform, but increased customer satisfaction and profits will make it worth the effort. 20 Case Study #1: NRF 2014 Hot 100 Retailer An NRF 2014 Hot 100 retailer with 170+ locations worldwide approached Datavail with several urgent issues. The company was suffering from an expensive trend of high DBA turnover, lack of resources for strategic, safety, and stability projects that needed to be completed, and an overall lack of oversight or monitoring for both database issues and system-wide management as a whole. The company s Applications Manager was attempting to mitigate the internal database operations in addition to the daily demands of his primary position. In addition to Datavail s standard services completing upgrades and deployments, instigating 24x7 monitoring and management via onshore/offshore teams, and instating regular health checks and performance monitoring, Datavail wrote scripts customized to the company s environment, provided leadership on key strategic and tactical projects that had been neglected, and brought in professional consulting to help the company implement best practices and provide highlevel database system recommendations. As a result, this retailer has eliminated concerns surrounding employee turnover, employed system oversight and management that enabled their Applications Manager to focus on his primary job responsibilities, and gained valuable guidance towards streamlining operations and effectively managing data across platforms and departments. Case Study #2: High-end Premium Lifestyle Retailer A high-end premium lifestyle retailer with a web of subsidiary companies and over 400 SQL Server databases was managing their entire database infrastructure via their IT team. These employees were handling all DBA responsibilities in addition to their fulltime job duties. With such a large interplay of systems at risk, the company was experiencing poor performance, inadequate data storage, and limited ability to retrieve historical data. After several failed attempts to mitigate these issues using other consultants, Datavail successfully implemented a new custom archiving solution, performed health checks, scheduled all future monitoring needs, completed performance tuning activities and upgrades, and managed data replication and migration. As a result, the company saw a 33% improvement in performance, a reduction in overall backups required, and improved ability to retrieve archived data while maintaining optimum performance levels on the POS system. These positive changes enabled their team to turn a keen eye towards more strategic projects with greater organizational impact. Case Study #3: Large Department Store Chain A large department store chain managing DB2, IMS, and Informix systems needed 24x7 database support for their non-strategic platforms so their team could focus on strategic initiatives. Around the same time, they experienced a major database outage within an environment in which they had very limited institutional knowledge. They found themselves empty-handed at a time when getting their system back online was top priority. Datavail stepped in immediately to tackle the outage first providing steady guidance and support through the entire recovery process. In addition, Datavail began implementing 24x7 monitoring services to prevent future incidents and provide support to the existing staff. Because of Datavail s availability and breadth and depth of database knowledge, the company s systems were restored quickly and effectively. The retailer was able to minimize business and revenue implications caused by the unforeseen outage while simultaneously improving round-the-clock coverage of the environments being supported.now their IT teams have the bandwidth to use their data to keep their eyes on the changes in the retail industry, and the resources to adjust the rudder as tomorrow becomes today. I cannot tell you how impressed I have been with your team members and organization over the past two days Remarkable! I ve never seen better support and partnership from an organization in my entire IT career, - Company Director of IT Case Study #4: Enterprise Fortune 500 Retailer A large enterprise Fortune 500 retail company using Oracle and Microsoft SQL wanted to address issues with database administration quality while providing coverage on weekends and holidays. They were suffering from high turnover with both database consultants and internal DBAs. After experiencing yet another round of turnover, the company decided to bring in Datavail to support the two loyal on-staff DBAs on weekends, holidays, and vacations, and to handle the additional work the Page 5 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry 2016 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

9 previous DBAs had managed. Datavail used a mix of both onshore and offshore teams that kept the system running 24x7 and brought in additional expertise the company had been missing. As a result, this retail company has significantly reduced employee turnover, offered a better quality of life to their full-time team, and decreased both the number of hours spent training new staff and the amount of their IT spend. In addition, due to the wide range of skills Datavail s onshore/offshore model offers, database administration quality has greatly improved. Their team now has time to dedicate themselves to organizing their data and creating more effective processes that streamline commerce. Datavail helped our organization save costs and improve the quality of our database administration. - Company IT Director 14. Metrics that Matter. Retail TouchPoints. Nd. p Metrics that Matter. Retail TouchPoints. Nd. p Achieve Unified Commerce. Boston Retail Partners p th Annual Store Systems Study 2016: Retail Technology Spend Trends Brave New World of Unified Commerce. Retail Info Systems News. Rep. IHL Group and Hughes, An EchoStar Company p Gates, Patrick. Migrating Legacy Databases to the Cloud. Datavail category-blog/migrating-legacy-databases-to-thecloud/ 19. Seamless Analytics. Accenture p Morris, Ken. How do we get from faux omni-channel to unified commerce?. Boston Retail Partners. Workshop presented at 2016 Retail TechCon Bibliography 1. Unified Commerce vs. Omnichannel. Geocart. Nd Achieve Unified Commerce with the Right Technology. Boston Retail Partners. October Unified Commerce vs. Omnichannel. Geocart. Nd. 4. Seamless Analytics: Three Imperatives for the Retail Digital Marketplace. Accenture accenture.com/us-en/insight-seamless-retail-analytics. aspx 5. Metrics that Matter to Retail CXOs. Retail TouchPoints. Rep. UXC Eclipse. Nd. retailtouchpoints.com/resources/type/white-papers/ metrics-that-matter-to-retail-cxos-1 6. The Data Storm: Retail and the Big Data Revolution. The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited. Rep. Wipro p The Data Storm. The Economist p Seamless Analytics. Accenture p The Digital Universe in 202: Big Data, Bigger Digital Shadows, and Biggest Grow in the Far East. IDC. December analyst-reports/idc-thedigital-universe-in-2020.pdf 10. The Data Storm. The Economist p Yee, Connie. Big Data in Retail: 2015 Guide For Retail Solutions. 1010Data p Shankar, Ravi. Why Retailers Need To Focus On Mastering Customer Data. Forbes.com. 15 February ciocentral/2013/02/15/why-retailers-need-to-focuson-mastering-customer-data 13. Achieve Unified Commerce. Boston Retail Partners p. 3 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry Page 6

10 Biography Evan Krakauer Account Director for Datavail Evan has been with Datavail for more than five years as a director of over a dozen successful brand name retail accounts. His primary focus is sales, account management and relationship building with our clients in the region. He works very closely with the DBA and Service Manger to insure customer satisfaction. Evan has over 20 years experience in account management. Evan frequently attends and speaks at local and national conventions such as Oracle s Open World, RMOUG, NYOUG, Mid-market CIO conference and Collaborate. About Datavail Datavail Corporation is the largest provider of data and database administration (DBA) services in North America, offering database design and architecture, administration and 24x7 support. The company specializes in Oracle, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, DB2 and SharePoint, and provides flexible on-site/off-site, onshore/offshore service delivery options to meet each customer s unique business needs. Contact Us General Inquiries: Fax Number: info@datavail.com Corporate Headquarters: Datavail Corporation Ridge Parkway Suite 125 Broomfield, CO Database Operations Control Center: Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd 3rd Floor, Unit No. B-3 Ashar IT Park, Road No. 16Z Wagale Estate Thane (West), Thane Direct Telephone Number: Bangalore Office Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd Concept Business Park #319/9, 1st floor, Block A Hosur Main Road Bommanahalli, Bangalore Page 7 Achieving Unified Commerce in the Data-Driven Retail Industry 2016 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

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