WHITE PAPER

Analytics for digital retail

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IntroductionThe advent of organized retail

propelled businesses to reach out

to a wider spectrum of consumers

in an effort to increase market

share. This gave rise to various

marketing channels and mediums

for retailers to communicate with

their consumers. Consumers use

multiple channels such as stores,

web, social and wireless devices

(mobiles, tablets), to perform

multiple tasks. So, the retailer has

to take the initiative to reach out

to these consumer segments and

leverage their presence.

ContentsDigital maturity curve .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 03Integrated digital strategy ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 03Components of digital strategy: social, mobile and Web .............................................................................................................................04Mobile strategy ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 05Web strategy .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 06Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 07

Digital maturity curveDigital strategies can be categorized into four phases:n Toddler: In this phase retailers have basic digital capabilities through a web site, intranet and partner portals. BI, reporting and KPIs are in-store features only.n Teenager: Here, retailers have basic digital capabilities through a web site, intranet and partner portals. They start focusing on brand awareness through social media and mobile, with isolated strategies across multiple channels. BI, reporting and KPIs are in-store features only.

n Adult: Retailers have expanded capabilities on social and mobile channels, including process integration. customer view across channels and enable consistent customer interaction. They have defined digital strategy and partial integration of multiple channels. They start with analytics pilots, with a measurement and governance framework.n Mature: Retailers have all their multiple channels integrated. They personalize their products with a single view of the customer. They co-create products and services with stakeholders with full social business capabilities. They seamlessly integrate customer experience at all touch points. They have a fully functioning awareness-analysis -insight-action framework based on analytics with an integrated measurement and governance framework.

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Mobile channels

Customerengagements,

experience, needs, expectations

Social channels

E-commerce

Traditional channels

Integrated digital strategyA single version of truth (common master data) is the most important element to enable cross channel integration and provide the same data across channels. Ideally, the retailer should have a single data source for product hierarchy, inventory and customer profiles. Merchandise, inventory and customer data across stores and onlinechannels should be integrated to provide a unifiedcustomer view across channels and enable consistent customer interaction.

Analytics further leverages integrated customer data for effective targeting with individualized and personalized offers. Personalization depends on different categories of customer data such as: n Need based events such as life / business / market eventsn Behavioural data such as preferences in product, channel, costn Customer demographics and psychographics

Some more integrated digital scenarios are content management, interactive marketing, profile management, self-service and real time offers.

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An integrated digital roadmap for retailers

Integrated customer insight

Integrated customer

experience

Integrated business functions (marketing, sales)

Deliver target experience

Components of digital strategy: social, mobile and WebSocial strategyFor retailers, listening and responding appropriately to discussions taking place around a product or service is the most direct and economical system to sell their brand.

Social analytics integrates, analyses and enables organizations to act on intelligence gathered from online conversations occurring across professional and consumer-generated media sites. It enables organizations to attribute online conversations to specific parts of their business. Organizations can extract important insights, sentiments, hidden patterns, trends and unknown correlations from customer-centric conversations and proactively act upon them to drive business outcome.A step wise social analytics framework:

Integrated VOC analytics: Retailers monitor and analyse conversation across call centers, surveys, chat and social media. They derive insights, patterns and correlations with metrics. Integrated response management system: Retailers have a dashboard for response across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other such media.Social CRM measures include:n Social conversation: social profile analysis, share of voice, audience engagement, conversation reach, sentiment analysisn Influencer analytics: active advocates, advocate influence, advocate impactn Social promotion: promotion spread, promotion engagement

Monitoring social media feeds allow retailers to gather that data at a low cost and make appropriate changes to ensure customer satisfaction.

The current social strategy used by the retailers is as follows:

Create public forum & blogs

Listen actively to your

customer

Provide feedback (positive & negative)

Analyze sentiment &

identify influencers

Influence the customers

Integrated VOC analytics

Integrated response management system

Social CRM

Future roadmap for retailers in social media

Mobile strategyMobile phones are the new channel for personalized services to a customer. Personalized promotions are based on his / her past purchases, updated with other information including complaints, service request status, follow-up feedback, information on troubleshooting a product, and so on. This is also a good medium to provide location based services which complement various channels like kiosks and stores. The growth of mobile banking means it can also act as a payment device for

transactions. Though mobiles are currently used just to push information, it can also be a source of information from a consumer during the lifecycle of a product.The popularity of smart phones and tablets, combined with the evolution of GPS technology has triggered a new digital marketing trend: SoLoMo (Social-Local-Mobile). SoLoMo enables marketers to offer deals, events and shopping opportunities based on their consumer’s location, over mobile applications.

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IntegratedVoc

dashboards

Integrated responsemanagement

New user registrations

Viral promotions

Service request /leads / information

Run campaigns Offer customized offers / deals based on purchase pattern & interest

Social profilesync

Social CRM

Campaign Management(Email & behavioral targeting)

Social media

Calls Chats

- Liking / interest- User preferences- Social media ID- Influence capability

Email

Listening VOC

Email

Personalized

Listen to your customer

Build your brand

Educate your customer

Integrate social media with

business

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Mobile contactless payment is another new trend, which enables POS with the contactless reader infrastructure. It also supports data capture at the POS, using contactless readers.

Some mobile KPI scenarios:n Customer facing mobile services: number of visitors and recurrent usersn Staff facing mobile services: increased productivity, transactions n Browser based apps: Number of downloads, active users, number of sales ready leads produced through this app

A roadmap for retailers in mobility:

Customer check-out

Trig

gers

Customer near store

Coupons

Messages ApplicationsCustomer

Customer shoppingin the store

Retail database

Application system

Analytics

eg. Targetedpromotions

algorithm

Web strategyThe internet has opened new doors for reaching out to consumers beyond the reach of brick and mortar stores. It enables retailers to promote store fronts, the products / services it offers, spread awareness, and attract and engage a consumer. It also opens up a new channel for sales, the online web store, electronic commerce (e-commerce). Various products enable retailers sell their products online. These products offer capabilities such as catalogue management, personalization, product comparison, search, advanced search, gift registry / wish list, order management.

Strategize the mobility solution

Develop mobile apps

Operationalize customer facing

scenarios like promotion

Measure the KPIs

Some e-commerce analytics trends adopted by organizations: n Web CRM analytics: helps manage customer relationships in an organized and controlled wayn Web survey analytics: analyses data collected from web surveys to give actionable insightsn Web revenue enhancement analytics: leverages past traffic volume data to estimate revenue with most accuracyn Web content analytics: analyses web content to discern much deeper patterns of meaning and more intuitive results for answer-seekers. This helps us understand content and product affinitiesn Search Engine Optimization (SEO): acquiring visibility for customers through search engines either by using SEO efforts or through paid search advertising

The roadmap e-commerce retailers

Target & Acquire the right customers

Segment customers based

on online interactions

Prioritize critical segments

Retain valuable customers

Increase sales & customer value

ConclusionWith the proliferation of new digital venues across social media and mobility, e-commerce retailers are actively experimenting with new concepts and realizing growth through digital channels. Forward-thinking retailers are increasingly making strategic IT investments in areas of social engagement, insightful and actionable analytics, and the “consumerization” or emergence of customer-centric features in B2B e-commerce.

About the authorAndrew Stephen is a Consultant in Analytics CoE at Mindtree. He has over 5 years of experience in Analytics,

Business Intelligence, Consulting, Solutioning. He has worked across the Retail/CPG value chain for leading

clients across the globe.

About MindtreeMindtree is a global information technology solutions company with revenues of over USD 435 million. Our 13,000 experts

engineer meaningful technology solutions to help businesses and societies flourish. Mindtree’s consulting-driven approach

makes us a strategic partner to over 40 Fortune 500 enterprises.

www.mindtree.com ©Mindtree Ltd 2014