Data Insights for Business Decisions - Market Research, Information Capturing, and Storage in Retail Sector

This presentation discusses the importance of data insights in making better business decisions in the retail sector. It covers market research techniques such as interviews, surveys, and focus groups, and how data is captured and stored using OCR, OMR, and web data capture. The presentation also highlights the use of big data and technology in creating personalized shopping experiences and improving customer services. Finally, it discusses the use of data in identifying areas of business attracting consumers and exploiting existing opportunities.

DATA INSIGHTS FOR
BUSINESS DECISIONS

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The collection of data took place within market research through interviews, cold calling,
surveys and focus groups from people forming part of the sample on different aspects or topic or
subject of the research. Furthermore, influences and human behaviours are understood through
market research that are acting as a driving force.

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It is not vital to have advanced technology while conducting market research whereas tech has a
vital role to play in case of collecting and analysing and storing big data. Big data largely uses
cloud computing and business intelligence to ensure the success of data collection and analysis
tasks.
Data driven information is a way to present the findings of the market research while tools such
as dashboards are used to present the insights of the large amount of data in order to ensure
understandability.

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Information Capturing With the retail sector
Retailers used to digitalize the data that its marketing research team has collected through filling
questionnaires with target audience. This is done by designing questionnaires in such a form
where it can be easily read by machines. In this way, data becomes more accessible. There are
several ways which is being used by retailers to carry out information capturing such as the
following:
Automated data capture: Here machines are used to capture data which then transform into
meaningful insights.
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition): It is used to read text within a document where OCR
software allows for accessing these data by converting it into electronic version. It helps
retailers such as Tesco in understanding the customer buying behaviour through interpreting
their purchase activity as obtained through OCR at the time of sale.
• OMR (Optical Mark Reading): This technology is being used within the retail sector to
perform screening of information contained within the survey forms and questionnaires and in
this way information contained within the paper format is captured in computer devices for
further analysis and decision - making.
Web data capture: Here internet and intranet are used for capturing data with the help of
numerous electronic forms. For instance, Tesco uses this method of data capturing in order to
develop useful insights about customers to generate leads accordingly.
Information storage within the retail sector
There are different ways through which information can be stored but it is necessary to
determine the right storage on the basis of nature and needs of business. There are pros and cons
for every form of storage and the best must be chosen out of them that is, public, private and
hybrid storing are considered to be effective and common ways that most of the modern
businesses are using while storing their confidential and important data.

Private storage: It can also be referred to as in – house or on – premise storage of data which is
quite convenient way of data storage. Here a great focus is kept over management and
maintenance of server and firms within retail sector are effectively using it to store data related to
their existing customers by partnering with MSP or IT consultant to get support and appropriate
technical expertise from them in effectively storing data.
Public storage: Here business migrate to cloud for the purpose of storing data and all data held
by the business moved to the remote data centre and it can be accessed only when internet
facility is available. It is used by retail sector to store data related to their operational activities
which helps it in adding higher value by reducing the cost associated with maintenance of private
storage and hiring IT consultant.

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Relational DBMS: It is considered to be an ideal storage solutions for modern businesses which
facilitate fulfilment of managerial needs of controlling data accessibility for workers & clients.
Firms within the retail sector uses this information management system to understand how
different data has linkage with one another, so that opportunity to utilize data in a better way can
be created.
Hierarchical DBMS: This system allows management to understand the system of employee's
ranking and departments within a retail organization such as Tesco. Therefore, this system is
useful for managing information related to staffing.

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With reference to retail sector of UK, the use of big data as a result of technological advancement
has facilitated greater understandability of consumer habits exhibited by them during shopping in
an attempt to decide how new customers and target audience can be attracted.
The role of data within the retail sector has changed with the advancement of technology as it is
now enabling retailers to create recommendations on the basis of customer's purchase history.
Accordingly, decisions regarding facilitation of personalized shopping experience and how to
improve customer services are being taken.
The data sets that the businesses within retail sector get with the help of technology provides for
behavioural analytics through which retailers are able to predict the next opportunities or big
trend that is going to enter the retail market soon. In this way, a kind of insight is being
developed among which results in positive impact over the strategies made by retail businesses.
Also, quicker identification of emerging preferences becomes possible which helps in avoiding
the rate at which customers churn along with ensuring that acquisition cost of new customers
could be kept minimum. Furthermore, data sets related to how customers are behaving online
helps retailer in predicting what item or items they must add to their offerings.
At last, provision of value and establishment of personalized communication facilitates creation
of various targeting solutions which results in the development of understanding about the
customers. In fact, targeting is considered as an effective way of reaching to the target audience
with the required marketing message which is possible only when the retailers are using right
data sets in their decision-making. This is what possible through technological advancement.

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In order to ensure and improve in – store experience, tracking customers on regular basis is
necessary fo. For this, retailers use censors and mobile applications to track every movement of
customer within the store. On gathering this data, analysis for better insights begin to determine
best way of delivering experiences to customers. Further, where focus is still needed and what
they should do to ensure customer return to the shop in the future can be determined through
data.

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Data helps in the identification of areas of business attracting consumers within it which in turn
helps retailers in supplying resources and staff that are required to address the issue that area is
facing in order to reduce the risk churn.
With the help of data driven strategy, retailers are able to spot and exploit existing opportunities
before it gets hit by crowd. Data helps in paying attention to the performance of products,
strategies and tools over the time to detect changes and avoid missing valuable opportunities.

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Identification of issue: At first step, issue must be specified before going to capture the data,
that is, whatever data the business is capturing must be helpful in addressing the issue faced by
the retailers.
Introduction of new methods: With the innovation is technology related to data capturing,
smart devices held by consumers can be used as an enterprise grade barcode scanner which is
helpful in streamlining different areas from which business is operating.
Use of Mobile POS: It enables employees within the retail store to process purchases made by
customer anywhere in the store through barcode scanning which is considered to efficient and
economic process of checking out. This would be helpful in improving data capturing by
reducing the retailer’s reliance over expensive hardware along with more options to shop which
leads to greater engagement and profitability.
Clienteling: Furthermore, use of data capturing technology can be used for creating better
relationships with customers along with driving higher sales. It is implemented by equipping
sales associated with clienteling app in their smart devices which helps in accessing real time
information related to customer and product and accordingly, retailers can develop powerful
insights on customer preferences and market trends.

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