Harnessing Big Data for Growth in Retail Industry

Big data has now become the latest trend today which led to cultural shift the way organisations and retailers link themselves to their customers, retrieve the data and do analysis, make plans and strategies. The today's customer is aware, empowered and has multiple expectations from the retailers and e-tailers. In the time of e-commerce and digitalization, the customers use data and technology for their shopping experiences. As the technology adoption and the multi-channel shopping experiences has become the inherent part of life of customers, it has become a major challenge for both the retailers and the e-tailers to keep up customer loyalty by understanding their expectations. Customers are varied in nature with respect to their demographics, tastes, preferences, likings, interests, purchasing power, behaviour etc. Analysing the customer needs, expectations, interests and behaviour; and mapping these factors to the products and offerings, discounts making plans and marketing strategies are the major issues for the retailers today. The big data analytics used in retail sector called ‘retail analytics ’helps to get the solutions of these problems. The retail operations, today, are standing on the data driven platform and are digitally controlled; data can be collected from various sources such as e-commerce transactions, social networking conversations, etc. It is prime time for both retailers and e-tailers to proper utilize analytics to understand the data available and to strategize further for future growth. It is right time to recognize the significance of big data, its uses, role and impact on the new business requirements and leveraging the same for transformation of the business processes, organizations and the whole industry. The present study focuses on the business opportunities for retailers using big data and retail analytics; and how its application lead towards the growth in retail industry. This paper discusses the role big data and retail analytics play in decision making; and various strategic areas which can lead to the multi-fold increase in the sales revenue. The study also discusses various opportunities and challenges present in the retail analytics. The present paper is exploratory in nature and uses secondary sources for data collection. The present study will make the retailers to understand various facets of big data in retail to enhance operational efficiency, customer engagement and satisfaction, customer loyalty, product expansion and innovation, logistics and supply chain management. The present study will help in understanding the retailer that the big data bridges the technological divide between a traditional store and the level of integration consumers ’desire.