The retail sector is changing. Retailers and brands are starting to embrace data science and its potential to reshape the industry.
Data is needed more than ever to solve retailers’ most urgent problems eg pricing and ranging decisions and supply chain management.
However, the challenge is hiring and retaining scarcely available data science and analytics talent, then getting the right data, in the right format, in front of the right decision makers.
Decision-making in the retail industry.
Should retailers and brands base decisions on gut feel? Or on data?
Currently, data is siloed. Retailers are relying on point-in-time analytics and expensive, one-off consultancy projects, rather than embedding analytics within their organisations.
However, research indicates data-driven businesses are 19 times more likely to be profitable.
We believe data should be democratised. Giving business users access to data – rather than locking it away in IT or data science teams – paves the way for more informed, intelligent commercial decisions.
Retail decisions are interlinked.
Decision makers in the retail industry regularly deal with five key commercial areas:
- Product range
- Pricing and promotion
- Marketing and media
- eCommerce
- Supply chain
Decisions in these areas are interlinked – ie altering product range affects price perception, whilst changing marketing impacts availability.
These decisions are fundamentally interwoven yet they’re typically made in silos, require several different technology products and are reliant on scarce – or busy – data science and AI talent.
Integrating retail decisions improves profitability, therefore making the right call in each of these interlinked areas is vital for a retailer’s success or failure.
Retailers are grappling with business-critical challenges.
In the current economic climate, retailers are grappling with business-critical challenges solvable by data science and analytics:
- Navigating cost price increases to relieve pressure on supply chains.
- Inflating product prices whilst continuing to deliver customer value.
- Clearing stock with efficient markdown as logistics costs skyrocket.
- Assigning marketing spend efficiently on promotions and effective targeting.
- Taking advantage of the opportunities from changing third party cookie policies – retail media will never be the same again.
Many retailers are far too reliant on instinct and experience. But there’s a better way – data and insight are a critical capability for brands who want to succeed.
Decision intelligence: the better way for retailers and brands to make decisions.
All retailers and brands can operate more efficiently and effectively.
Decision intelligence is the commercial application of data science and AI. It democratises data, putting tools and insight directly into the hands of decision makers.
In answer to the challenging retail landscape, we’ve launched HyperFinity; a no code decision intelligence platform built for retailers and brands.
HyperFinity is the product of our four founders’ decades of consumer analytics experience. It joins the dots between customer, product and click data to help make more intelligent commercial decisions. Simple.
HyperFinity helps retailers and brands understand and forecast how business-critical, complex decisions impact each other, then use insights to inform their decisions.
Its highly accessible user interface allows non-technical business users to apply sophisticated data science and AI techniques without needing to code. Examples of typical business users include traders, marketing leads, customer insight directors and category managers.
In the first phase of our product launch, we’re releasing core functionality to help retailers and brands generate actionable insight about their customers and products. Affinity analytics, attributes, need states and segments are the foundations of great commercial decisions.
We’ve also built a proprietary decision engine for marketing and media activation. Users can create bespoke audiences based on macro-, micro- and individual segmentations and inform personalisation decisions. Our decision engine connects to downstream orchestration systems, like ERP, CRM and CMS, to power targeted marketing and retail media.
Fundamentally, our accessible platform creates simple outputs which power the key decisions determining the success or failure of modern retailers.
Decision intelligence offers the potential to revolutionise retail.
