IBM Software Solution Brief IBM InfoSphere: Solutions for retail Build a single view of customer information and a trusted source for product information with data integration and master data management Highlights Provide retail customers with consistent product information across channels, including websites, kiosks and mobile devices Bring together customer information from multiple sources, ranging from ordering systems to social media sites, to create a single, 360-degree view of each customer Develop targeted marketing s and personalized retail experiences to drive sales and inspire loyalty Optimize the efficiency of internal processes and reduce operational costs In the tremendously competitive retail industry, the latest consumer trends are producing fresh challenges for retail organizations. In particular, the increasing use of mobile devices and social media by consumers as part of the shopping experience requires retailers to implement new, efficient and effective ways to manage product and customer information. Retailers must ensure that accurate, up-to-date information on product features, availability and pricing is available to their customers across a full range of channels. They also need ways to bring together customer information from a wide array of sources to better respond to customer preferences, create targeted marketing s and promotions, and improve cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. By implementing effective information management solutions that help create a single, trusted view of products and a single, complete view of customers, retailers can undertake strategies that give them a competitive edge in an ever-changing market. Addressing the challenges and opportunities of mobile commerce and social media Today, mobile devices such as smartphones play key roles in the retail shopping experience. Customers use mobile devices to browse products, find information, read reviews, compare prices and availability, and make purchases. Retailers must ensure that detailed product information is available, consistent and up to date whether customers find that information on a home computer, on a smartphone or in a retail store. If retailers can deliver a robust, consistent experience across channels, they stand to gain revenues and retain customers.
The growth of social networks presents additional opportunities for retailers to track trends, foster direct customer interaction, build brand loyalty and personalize the shopping experience. Customers use social media to collect information and reviews, and to share their feedback with friends and with businesses. To maximize the value of social media, retailers need to integrate the customer preferences and feedback gathered through social media with customer information collected in ordering, billing and other systems. They must also take actions to update social media with product-related information as quickly as possible. By creating a single, complete view of customers, retailers can better understand consumer preferences. As a result, retailers can create targeted s, promotions and even in-store signage that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing efforts. They can improve cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and generate real-time purchase recommendations. Creating a single view of the customer allows retailers to produce a more personalized shopping experience one that helps deepen customer loyalty and turns customers into brand advocates who promote products through social media. Turning insights into action Empowered by technology, transparency and an abundance of information, today s consumers are dictating a new set of terms in the dynamics between buyers and sellers (see Figure 1). IBM InfoSphere and IBM Smarter Commerce solutions help retailers collect, manage and analyze customer, product and operational data so they can turn new challenges into key opportunities. Consumer Contributions: Buying history Ratings Reviews Real-time feedback Aggregate market Contributions: Recommendations Shopping trends Aggregate opinions and feedback Retailer Contributions: Communications Advertising In-store experience Products Customer service Figure 1: By integrating conversations from multiple sources into a single, continuous engagement, retailers can deliver consistent experiences that resonate and strengthen customer relationships. 2
Building the foundation for Smarter Commerce with IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management Master data including customer, account and product data as well as information about other master domains is the lifeblood of retail organizations. Without a way to manage master data across myriad sources, organizations are left with outdated, incomplete, inaccurate and unsynchronized information. An organization s critical business processes depend on master data; without complete, accurate and trusted master data, those processes are compromised and become inefficient. IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management (MDM) is designed to help organizations address the root causes of master data complexity: the ways in which data is created, used, updated, managed and analyzed. With InfoSphere MDM, organizations can centralize and manage critical data, creating a single, trusted source of information and a single view of each customer. InfoSphere MDM enables organizations to manage all master domains that they choose to harmonize for consumption in business operations. And it provides a full range of MDM functions, including adding, deleting, updating, validating and securing access to master data. InfoSphere MDM provides the foundation for Smarter Commerce solutions by synchronizing product information, accelerating the introduction of new products and bundles, and creating a single, centralized view of each customer. Providing consistent product information and improving internal efficiency InfoSphere MDM includes product information management (PIM) capabilities to help retailers author, define and maintain a consistent view of product information across applications in the enterprise architecture. That product information can be disseminated to customers across channels and used internally to improve operational efficiency. A single, centralized source for product information is critical for providing customers with the right information, where, when and how they want it. A customer buying a television, for example, should see the same product information whether she is using a manufacturer s website, visiting a physical store, comparing prices on her smartphone or shopping on a retail e-commerce site. Delivering reliable information across channels helps produce a positive retail experience that inspires confidence and loyalty, and ultimately leads to purchases. Centralizing product information also helps streamline internal processes. A retailer might need to collect product information from a foreign manufacturer, translate that information and then deliver it to sales and marketing teams. That process can be time-consuming and may lead to errors as information is repeatedly entered and re-entered into systems. Using InfoSphere MDM, the retailer can create a single, trusted source of product information and make it available to everyone inside and outside the organization, formatted appropriately for a variety of needs. With a single source of information, the retailer saves time and money, and reduces the likelihood of errors. 3
InfoSphere MDM manages product information and all related attributes to help reduce duplicate and conflicting item data. It also helps improve the quality and timeliness of data, which can facilitate better decision making at multiple levels of the organization. For many retailers, introducing new products is a timeconsuming, labor-intensive process that requires extensive manual work by multiple employees to update several systems. By helping to automate the synchronization of internal and external processes, InfoSphere MDM allows organizations to decrease the time for introducing new products from months to days. Accelerating the time to market can help drive sales, while automating processes can reduce error rates and decrease delivery costs. Targeting marketing s and promotions Analytics help retailers uncover new ways to target, track, influence and guide customer behavior. With additional insight into customer preferences, organizations can generate demand-driven merchandising and build a supply chain based on anticipated customer behaviors. Marketing and customer service groups can use customer profiles to deliver seamless customer interactions across channels and provide consistent levels of service. But getting the right results from analytics requires clean, accurate data exactly what MDM provides. By leveraging the strengths of MDM technology, retailers can improve their analytics efforts and confidently execute on the results. InfoSphere MDM helps bring together customer information from a broad array of communication channels, including social media sources, to build a single, 360-degree view of each customer. Retailers can use that single customer view to create better-targeted, personalized marketing s and promotions that are tightly tied to customer preferences and behaviors. For example, an online bookseller might create a personalized promotion using the categories of books that a customer has recently bought or shown interest in, as shared by the customer on a social networking site. Reap further benefits with the IBM software portfolio Implementing InfoSphere MDM along with other IBM software delivers additional benefits for retail organizations: Leverage InfoSphere MDM and IBM WebSphere Commerce to provide advanced capabilities for managing product catalogs. Implement InfoSphere MDM with IBM SPSS advanced analytics software and IBM Unica enterprise marketing management software to create a customer decision engine that delivers targeted, personalized marketing offers. Integrate InfoSphere MDM with the IBM InfoSphere Information Server data integration software platform to derive more value from the information spread across systems. InfoSphere Information Server integrates data from multiple high-volume data sources and target applications to help ensure systems deliver accurate, complete information to business users across the enterprise. 4
This detailed, trusted view enhances the effectiveness of cross-sell and up-sell efforts as well. With a complete record of a customer s purchases and searches, retailers can generate accurate recommendations for additional products while a purchase is in progress, potentially increasing marketbasket totals. Creating a single customer record can also help retailers reduce expenses and better target marketing s (see Figure 2). By eliminating the duplicate records that add significant costs to mailings and other marketing efforts and creating personalized s, retailers can enhance the efficiency of their sales efforts and improve success rates. Product manager Identify target customers, segments and offerings Marketing manager Create Execute Monitor, evaluate and analyze Vice president of marketing Define marketing strategy Approve Delivery channel Customer Figure 2: IBM InfoSphere MDM provides a single view of the customer that can help retailers throughout a. Here are examples of how a detailed view of customer information impacts the various steps, and the MDM capabilities involved: Define marketing strategy: Analyze 18- to 24-year old customer demographic to determine potential response (predictive analytics) Create : If customer is new to fishing, suggest a 10% discount on beginner-level gear (define rules) Approve : Add SMS as a new channel for the delivery process (collaborative process improvement) Execute : If customer is retired, suggest 5% discount on bait boxes during fishing season (dynamically update rules) Monitor and evaluate : If promotion is not met, send real-time alerts to market managers and vice presidents (events); determine sales increase or sales loss (monitor KPIs) Key Events Collaboration Monitoring Analytics Rules MDM 5
Maintaining a competitive edge To achieve an advantage in a highly competitive field, retail organizations must continue to put the customer first, finding new ways to accommodate customer preferences for how they access information and make purchases. The InfoSphere portfolio can play a key role in strengthening customer relationships, driving sales and reducing operating costs. By creating a 360-degree view of customers and a single source for product information with InfoSphere MDM, retailers can provide a more consistent and personalized customer experience one that inspires loyalty and turns customers into brand advocates. For more information To learn more about IBM InfoSphere MDM for the retail industry, visit: ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/industry/retail Copyright IBM Corporation 2012 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 Produced in the United States of America May 2012 IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, InfoSphere, Smarter Commerce, SPSS, Unica and WebSphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at Copyright and trademark information at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. It is the user s responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any other products or programs with IBM products and programs. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NONINFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided. The client is responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations applicable to it. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that its services or products will ensure that the client is in compliance with any law or regulation. Statements regarding IBM s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only. Please Recycle IMS14389-USEN-00