How Wal-Mart is Using Data Visualization to Improve Business Decisions

By Joe Keenan

In a session this week at the Teradata Partners Conference in Anaheim, Calif., Stephen Brobst, chief technology officer of Teradata, and Heidi Daniels, director, analytics and visualization technologies, Wal-Mart, discussed how the retail chain is using visualization to turn data into action.

Brobst kicked off the discussion by stressing the importance of making data visual for business decision makers.

“Give decision makers information that they can discern some insight from,” Brobst said. “Seventy percent of the sense receptors are in the eyeball. Nothing is as powerful as visualizing data. The average human can only understand patterns in 10 numbers at a time. Traditional visualizations are hundreds of numbers at a time; more advanced can get to thousands of numbers at a time. Effective visualization reveals trends, patterns and relationships [in the data].”

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Companies:
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Joe Keenan Author's page Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.