How Retailers Can Put Their Precious Big Data Into Action

Big data, just like petabytes or exabytes, can be a nebulous concept to grasp and incorporate into business planning. That said, consider these very specific outcomes that retailers have seen in the past year when they began to sync, correlate and take action on their data sets:

• By taking action on its web analytics and inventory data, a leading department store determined that solving the issue of consumers viewing products that had no stock availability could create $200,000 worth of revenue.
• By matching up order data and CRM data, a high-end retailer discovered that nearly 2,000 VIP customers hadn't made a purchase in the last six months, and by reaching out to them via email, it generated $225,000 in revenue.

By managing, hiring and taking action on this new natural resource, retailers can build the foundation for years of success with the oil that never runs dry — big data.