Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing: A Retail Industry Analysis

This report examines the application of Business Intelligence (BI) and data warehousing within the retail industry. It highlights the increasing importance of BI in achieving a competitive edge, particularly in an era of globalization and increased competition. The report explores various aspects, including the use of BI for customer analytics, stock management, and vendor management. It also covers trends like collaborative and embedded BI, as well as the impact of big data and customer behavior analytics. The report discusses how retailers leverage BI tools to analyze customer data, optimize business processes, and make informed decisions. By utilizing BI, retailers can gain insights into product viability, market position, and customer preferences, leading to improved sales, marketing strategies, and overall business performance. The report emphasizes the importance of efficient employee management, customer-centric approaches, and the strategic use of data for success in the retail sector.

Business Intelligence
and Data-
warehousing

The objective if BI is to promote the usage of information systems
worldwide.
Globalization have increased the competition different organizations.
Data is now not collected and managed manually but it is done by the
information systems.
Database systems are used to manage the back-end processes.
The BI applications have been widely used in the organizations to
handle a large amount of information.
The companies have sensitive information that needs to be safeguard
from the security vulnerability.
Introduction

BI and Data Warehousing

Accoring to Olszak & Zurada (2015), Retailers are continuously
making efforts to attain competitive advantage in the market.
There are various information management tools and techniques
that are used by the retailers to contract with suppliers.
But most of the time they have received failures.
BI provides way to the retailers to improve their current business
processes by analysing the strengths and weaknesses of their
business, opportunities and the related threats.
Business intelligence offers opportunities to the companies to
compare and contrast the business processes with other
organizations.
Continued…

Retailers need to promote their business using a list of
innovation which is possible by using technologies related
to business intelligence.
The three main intermediate stages include consolidation,
optimization and integration of business process with the
implemented technology.
When the data if a company is managed properly, it is
easier to attract more of customers for a product or service.
Business intelligence provide tools that sort the raw data
into useful fragments.
Continued…

Insights of a company can be analysed such as product viability,
demand for product supply, improvements in business procedures
and determining the market position.
This helps the companies to generate leads for marketing different
products effectively. Business processes are optimized to the
appropriate information.
Importance of Business
Intelligence

Visualization can be done for the
accomplishment of long-term goals.
This has positive impact on the decision-
making process.
This makes the calculations procedures much
easier for the employees working for a
business.
Continued…

Business intelligences allows centralization of data.
The raw information is filtered and reduces the time required to
export and import data.
Through business intelligence the data is gathered over a central
hub which be accessed by anyone connected over a same network.
Continued…

It streamlines the business processes by
reducing the complexities of data.
It sorts the data according to the
requirements and presents it into the
formatted text.
Benchmarking, computer modelling and
related technologies are used for such tasks
to be accomplished Hillsberg (2017).
Continued….

Owusu, (2017) describes about the technological
advancements are rapidly increasing worldwide,
trends in business intelligence is also increasing.
 Artificial Intelligence- it provides the real-
time data analysis for the information that is
being accessed by the users.
 This gives better accuracy than the analysis
done by human.
 Artificial intelligence is preferred by most of the
industries nowadays.
Trends of Business
Intelligence

 Collaborative Business Intelligence- This allows the
collaborative decision-making process for achieving business
goals.
 This technology can also be accessed by anyone who is outside
the IT team.
 Embedded Business Intelligence- This toll is used to perform
business analytics for the business process.
 These allows business operations to be performed effectively and
efficiently to provide better accessibility to the users.
Continued…

 Cloud Analytics- this provides shorter
deployment time for processing a large
amount of information.
 It also provides large storage space for the
users so that they can retrieve this
information for future use.

According to Pavkov (2016), the retailers every day deal with a
thousands of customers which provides a large amount of
information.
This consists of the details about the customers and the details
about the product/services a customer has used.
This data has to be mined because such transactions are difficult for
a company to manage.
This also affects the competitive advantage of a retail company in a
negative manner.
Competitive Edge in the Retail
Industry

The database stores information for about 2.5
petabytes which is much larger in size.
This data overloads the database system which
sometimes leads to the system failure.
Using the process of inventory management, retail
companies tries to understand the customer
behaviour with the help of collected information.
Retail companies could make the right decisions using
business intelligence software analytical tools.
Continued…

The data is analysed according to the number of
customers who are visiting the store on a regular basis.
If the customer visiting rate is lower than expected then
the retail companies have to develop effective strategies
for getting over the challenges they face.
The retail companies have to assure that their inventory is
bringing sufficient turn over so that they could attain a
competitive advantage.
The strength of a retail company is the human resources
they have.
Continued..

It is important to have efficient employees in a company who could
easily manage the resources.
Employees construct better business strategies. Companies have to be
aware about the interests of customers for the products/services they
sell.
It is necessary for the retail companies to know whether the customer
requirements are fulfilled or not.
Not only the requirements are considered but also to look after whether
the customers are buying those products also which are recommended
to them.
The suggested products have to be reached for more number of
customers to increase sales and marketing for a product.

The cost is distributed according to the requirements for
financial, technical and other related resources.
Most of the retail companies works on a lower budget. They
believe in covering small investments so as to manage the loss
in business (if occurs).
To manage business losses, the retail company takes relevant
advises from the business experts and acknowledge their ideas
for bringing the best in the process of sales and marketing.
Business intelligence allows retail companies to store the
information and to retrieve it whenever required from the
database system.

 Stock Management: One of the main challenges of retail companies is to
manage the pricing of products.
 The higher prices will eliminate the generated leads and the low prices will
create a loss to the companies.
 Cost are managed according to the basic requirement for marketing the
product and besides that, extra costs are also considered to have a backup.
 Customer Analytics: After the discussion of sock management, customer
analytics is another application of business intelligence that can be used by
the retail companies.
 Customers mainly require the better quality of products and the affordable
prices of the required products.
 There are two important characteristics that needs to be considered socio-
graphic and demographics when customers prefer shopping of products.
Business Intelligence
Applications

 Vendor Management and Evaluation: Vendors are the most
required resources for a retail company.
 Association will knowledgeable vendors promote business growth.
 Vendor analysis is done by the companies to ensure that the
product marketing is moving on a right track.
 Right marketing for right customers is essential business
strategies for all the retail companies.
Continued…

Business intelligence tools provide the feature of scalability
which enables retailers to compete with the external
environment.
It helps in determining the best selling brands of the company,
offers revenue rates for the other associated companies.
The BI tools strategic decisions by first identifying the issues
and then giving their appropriate solutions.
Each company has their own specific targets that needs to be
accomplished in a certain duration of time. The strategic
decision allows effective data transaction process for the retail
companies.
Sales, Target and Performance
Analysis

Success in the market is not a easy task to
accomplish.
It requires analysis of the potential risks
associated with the company’s branding,
competitor analysis, development of business
strategies and many other phenomena are
considered. It is a necessary aspect for the
retailers to look after such issues like managing
the information as it is their crucial assets as
mentioned in the article by Bayer et al., (2017).
Continued..

Big Data for the retailers: Business intelligence and Big Data analysis has
allowed retail companies to use social media channels as the great source of
retrieving information about the customers.
Customer Behaviour Analytics for Retail: It is important for retailers to
communicate with the customers and go through the customer insights for
analysing customer behaviour.
Personalizing the in-store experience with Big Data: The online shopping
method has changed the procedures of business operations and the customer
behaviour. To understand the requirements of customers purchasing products
online has become a crucial task.
Increasing conversion rates through predictive analytics and targeted
promotions: For the retail companies to manage the promotional rates of
products, they need to gather an appropriate information about the specific
requirements of the customers.
Customer Journey Analytics: The activities that customer shares on their
social media profiles helps the retail companies to analyse what kind of products
customer requires.
Operational Analytics and Supply Chain Analysis: Operational Analytics and
Supply Chain Analysis also helps retail companies to take effective decisions and
develop effective strategies for their small business Hitchcock (2018).

 Bayer, H., Aksogan, M., Celik, E., & Kondiloglu, A. (2017). Big data mining and
business intelligence trends. Journal of Asian Business Strategy, 7(1), 23.
 BDAN, (2017). Business Intelligence as a Competitive Advantage in the Retail
Industry. [Online] Bigdataanalyticsnews. Available at:
http://bigdataanalyticsnews.com/business-intelligence-competitive-advantage-in-the-
retail-industry/
[Accessed: 10 May 2018]
 Hillsberg, A., (2017). Top 5 business intelligence (BI) solutions for your company.
[Online] Bigdata-madesimple. Available at:
http://bigdata-madesimple.com/top-5-business-intelligence-bi-solutions-for-your-com
pany/
[Accessed: 10 May 2018]
 Hitchcock, E., (2018). Five Big Data Use Cases for Retail. [Online] Datameer. Available
at: https://www.datameer.com/blog/five-big-data-use-cases-retail/ [Accessed: 10 May
2018]
 Infruid, (2017). Gaining the Competitive Edge in Retail Industry. [Online] Infruid.
Available at: https://infruid.com/business-intelligence-retail-industry/ [Accessed: 10
May 2018]
 Olszak, C. M., & Zurada, J. (2015). Information technology tools for Business
Intelligence development in organizations. Polish Journal of Management
Studies, 12(1).
 Owusu, A. (2017). Business intelligence systems and bank performance in Ghana:
The balanced scorecard approach. Cogent Business & Management, 4(1), 1364056.

References