For ages, businesses across the world have focussed their energy and attention on one simple question “what do customers want?” This question is central to the growth of any industry, no matter which sector it belongs to.

Retail as well as many other industries depend on gathering consumer insights to understand customer behavior. This is done by analyzing the big data (a large amount of specific data) collected through elaborate customer service mechanisms, processes of engagement, and communication. The tool, technique, and process used in collecting and analyzing the data come together and are called Business Intelligence (BI).

Today, Business Intelligence in retail industry is being used largely to reveal knowledge regarding consumer behavior, needs, and expectations. Companies like Amazon and Uber are relying on Business Intelligence (BI) tools to make their services better and processes more efficient. Statics show that Business Intelligence (BI) market is set to grow from $20.60 billion in 2019 to $39.35 billion in 2027.

With the help of BI, businesses are not only able to analyze data but also predict sales and market potential. BI is revolutionizing the retail industry by optimizing business processes, decreasing operational costs, and expanding growth opportunities. If you wish to know how you can also explore Business Intelligence tools, this is the right article for you.

How Business Intelligence is Being Used?

• Companies are using Business Intelligence to understand their target market and customers better.
• Using Business Intelligence, retail companies are consolidating, analyzing, and auditing the raw data collected through various mechanisms.
• These insights are contextualized and turned into valuable information that further helps businesses plan their future action.
• Business Intelligence consists of numerous tools and techniques used for collating data and analyzing it into meaningful information.

Four Important Components of Business Intelligence

1. Data storage system

This is a centralized system where the company stores information from a variety of sources.

2. Business analytics system

This system is used for processing data collected through various sources for identifying patterns and relationships that can help solve business problems. This process is also called data mining.

3. System for monitoring and analyzing

It includes Business performance management tools that help management, monitor and analyze the progress.

4. Interactive Dashboard

This dashboard offers quick access to the data and information for measuring performance and quantitative analysis.

Benefits of Business Intelligence in Retail Industry

1. A better understanding of data

The BI dashboard presents data in a simple and comprehensible manner. This helps businesses to visualize information easily. Precise and correct graphical representation of analyzed data gives an edge against the market competition.

2. Better collaboration among departments

BI tools can be integrated with different departments. Data collected from different systems can be shared through advanced reporting and analysis. By accessing the real-time report, teams can make an informed decision. Information can be shared across all levels by many users to achieve departmental collaborations within the organization.

3. Increased productivity

Key performance indicators can help companies track and monitor the overall performance of the team. This enables streamlining of the work processes and makes operations more efficient, maximizing the productivity of the employees.

4. Better decision-making ability

The report and analysis of the data help organizations predict market variables. Real-time reports based on accurate and relevant insights help organizations make better decisions.

5. Customer engagement and satisfaction

As already mentioned, BI tools are being used by the retail industry for predicting consumer behavior and wants. This is allowing companies to develop better customer engagement mechanisms and market for their products. BI is helping retail companies to develop user personas and collect customer feedback to take corrective measures for higher customer satisfaction. BI can track how customers interact with e-commerce stores to create a better marketing experience for them. This is also helping retail companies to build better brand names in the global market.

6. Gain social media intelligence

BI is being used by companies to leverage the power of social media and identify opportunities to connect with people. Using BI tools, retail companies are targeting existing and potential customers and expanding their customer base.

7. Make processes cost-effective and increasingly profitable

BI tools help businesses to get better insight into the various activities of departments and design cost-saving processes. The application of business intelligence in retail industry allows the elimination of redundant processes and automates routine activities; waste in facility management, excess inventory, and marketing overages are some of the opportunities which can easily be identified using BI tools. BI tools also reduce the chances of human errors and can discover discrepancies and inefficiencies to increase profit margins.

8. Saves time

BI tools can generate accurate data with the click of a few buttons. Further, it saves the time that is needed to manually enter the data. It also saves time that used to get wasted in correcting human error. The BI system eliminates wastage of time by performing complex calculations in minutes. This also enables teams to swiftly generate reports, visualize data, and quickly make decisions for faster execution of tasks.

9. Help develop better sales strategies

BI tools are primarily used to retrieve sales information. With the help of BI, the sales team can know which sales partners are performing better and which aren’t. The sales team can also gain competitive analysis and check in which parameters the competitors are doing better using the BI application. BI can help the sales department build smarter sales strategies using data that indicates market trends.

10. Better online security

BI solutions that are armed with powerful analytics and advanced security tools can save your business from malware attacks and data breaches. Businesses are investing in high-end BI software to secure their enterprise from hackers and data theft.

How Retail Business Intelligence is Useful for Businesses in Today’s Scenario

There is not a single department or sector where businesses and large-scale enterprises are not using BI to make informed decisions. Recent studies suggest that those businesses which are using business intelligence are likely to reach decisions faster than the ones not using BI. Business intelligence is used in every department in the retail industry, starting from sales and marketing to finance and operations. Here is a list of a few departments and activities where BI tools are being incorporated in a major way by the retail industry.

• Data analysis is a very important activity in the retail industry for understanding consumer behavior and getting insight into their opinion. Data analysis helps companies tap opportunities, improve the existing processes, and then decide upon the future course of action. Business Intelligence tools are used here.
• Sales data analysis also needs Business Intelligence tools. BI tools are used to set the key performance indicators (KPIs) that help the sales team monitor revenue targets, sales status, and profitability.
• Business Intelligence tools help the financial department to break down complex information and understand aspects that influence profit and loss.
• Business intelligence tools are used for real-time campaign tracking and measuring performances. The data helps in planning future marketing campaigns.
• Business Intelligence tools are being used largely today in supply chain management. Operation teams are using BI to improve service levels, find better distribution routes, reduce inventory costs, and keep stocks up to date.

Real-World Examples of Eight Leading Retail Companies that Use BI

Business intelligence has been used by some renowned companies across the world to target a specific group of customers, enhance the buying experience, and drive loyalty.

Here’s how these companies are using BI to propel their growth:

1. Walmart

The advantages of business intelligence in retail industry are many, and Walmart is a great example to show us that. Walmart uses BI to gain insight into consumers’ buying behavior, online promotions, and merchandising, and to grow a loyal base of customers. It uses big data to gain real-time information on the workflow in stores, distribution centers, and e-commerce. Walmart uses simulation to optimize routes and manage the supply chain more efficiently. It uses data mining to accelerate decision-making on stocks, merchandise display, and the addition of new items in the store. It is used in every department at Walmart.

2. Amazon

Amazon uses big data to better understand customers and monitor their buying patterns. The company does target marketing through predictive analysis. Data is gathered from purchase patterns, wishlist items, and saved items in the cart to give a better buying experience to the users and enhance loyalty among customers. The retailer also uses external databases, such as census data, to understand the demographic it is catering to. This 360-degree view of consumers allows Amazon to build a reliable buyer persona. This further helps the company offer users products relevant to their tastes and needs.

3. Google

Google uses analytics and AI to make its products more relevant and helpful for people. Google Maps uses AI to analyze traffic data and offer users the most convenient route to commute. Google search, Google photos, Gmail, and Google ads all use business AI and BI to offer an engrossing user experience.

4. Starbucks

Starbucks uses BI through its loyalty card program and mobile application. The purchase data that is gathered from customers allows Starbucks to predict what customers like and personalize the offers sent to them. Starbucks uses these BI tools to run email campaigns and target customers with individual offers on products that customers often order. Business intelligence has helped Starbucks to increase footfall in their stores and hike the order volume.

5. Netflix

Netflix is a great example to start with. This streaming service has over 200 million users, and it uses business intelligence tools in a big way. Netflix uses predictive analytics for targeted content promotion. Based on the watch history, Netflix generates predictions using AI-powered algorithms to curate content for the users. Their content recommendations show 80% accuracy. This is not all; Netflix uses data in different manners. The company also uses data to predict which shows will gain popularity in the future and attract new consumers to their content.

6. Twitter

This social media giant uses real-time data analytics about its audience to grow its revenue and services. Twitter uses BI to find the tweet rate of a post to predict how much the topic is trending. Similarly, it uses algorithms to identify such tweets that violate the content protocol of the platform. Twitter collects and studies the data to perfect its service. For example, Twitter uses business intelligence to push promoted tweets, which are equivalent to advertisements that enhance brand value for the users.

7. Uber

Do Uber surge prices bother you at times? Well, no matter how much we hate paying extra at times, we cannot deny that Uber is minting money with the help of real-time data analysis. Uber uses business intelligence to analyze multiple data points to offer customers dynamic pricing. The company’s algorithms monitor journey times, the availability of drivers, traffic conditions, and customer demand to adjust the prices.

8. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has been using social media data to learn who is drinking their beverage, their age, and the occasion. This is done to create more targeted advertisement campaigns. Artificial intelligence development services have further helped Coca-Cola to use AI-powered image recognition technology on those online posts that contain the image of Coca-Cola.

Studies have shown that by 2025, the global business intelligence market size will reach USD 33.3 billion. During the same time, small and medium-scale enterprises are projected to adopt BI tools at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10%. The BI market is expected to grow from $20.60 billion in 2019 to $39.35 billion in 2027.

The statistics tell the story of a future where business intelligence will run the global market. Any enterprise that fails to adopt business intelligence into its workflow will miss out on the golden opportunity of tapping the right targeted market and enhancing its brand value. There has also been a rise in demand for business intelligence developers.

Various Aspects of Business Intelligence Tools and Techniques are Being Used Today

Business intelligence tools can be used by any organization, big or small. Research can help a retail company find the perfect BI solution that can meet the needs of the business. Here we will highlight a few business intelligence tools and techniques used by retail companies to achieve key insights for growth and productivity.

1. Predictive analysis

This is a BI technique that helps businesses make evidence-based decisions using statistical methods. Statistics are studied to generate probabilities and predict market trends. This technique allows businesses to analyze the data set based on consumer behavior and make intelligent guesses. Today, this technique is driving sales and helping companies tap into opportunities for achieving their goals.

2. Data mining

This technique allows businesses to discover patterns and relationships by studying large data sets with the help of database systems, statistics, and machine learning.

3. Analytics

This technique allows a retail company to make quicker decisions using data visualization in the dashboard. Analytics uses relevant metrics to transform complex data into coherent graphical formats. This allows immediate access to data which are collected from various historical and current sources.

4. Reporting

This is a process of deploying BI applications to prepare and analyze data to discover insights that can help companies make rational decisions. It involves the process of gathering data through tools and software.

5. Contextual analytics

Contextual analytics is an approach that offers users the benefit of analytics directly in a situational framework. Here, dashboard and analytics get embedded in a software’s core workflow.

6. KPIs

Key performance indicators are measurable units of performance for a specific objective over a period of time. KPI allows a company to check whether milestones or targets are being achieved in a time-bound manner for meeting an objective or reaching the final goal.

7. Prescriptive analytics

This process allows businesses to make actionable decisions based on the forecast made during predictive analysis.

8. Text analytics

This technique processes a large number of unstructured texts based on machine learning, linguistic analysis, and statistical techniques. It allows businesses to gather high-quality information from text.

Business intelligence is continuously evolving. Artificial intelligence, embedded BI, collaborative BI, and cloud analytics are some of the latest trends in BI that are being used by companies. In the next section, we will read some real-life examples of big companies that have used these techniques in their processes and achieved higher productivity.

How Can Owebest Help Your Retail Business?

Owebest Technologies has been offering business intelligence services to the retail industry. We have been helping small and medium enterprises across the country find the best BI technology for their business and reap the benefits of it. If you wish to leverage the power of BI for your retail business and enjoy an edge over your competitors, do get in touch with us.

We have a team of experienced and skilled experts who have extensive knowledge of BI development. Our experts work closely with our clients to understand their business needs and provide tailor-made solutions that meet their requirements.

We also use cutting-edge technologies and tools to provide our clients with the most advanced and efficient BI development services. Our team ensures that the solutions we provide are of high quality, scalable, and meet industry standards.

Moreover, we have a proven track record of delivering successful BI development projects for various industries, including healthcare, finance, and retail. Our clients have trusted us with their business development needs and have consistently received outstanding results.

In conclusion, Owebest Technologies is the best choice for entrepreneurs and enterprises seeking BI development services, thanks to our experienced team, cutting-edge technologies, proven track record, and cost-effective solutions.