Identifying and Classifying Master Data
The retail industry has become more connected in many ways, as the degree of separation decrease, the amount of information available seems to have exploded (Loshin, 2008). An organization that can accommodate the flood of mostly redundant and conflicting pieces of data find that the combination of information sharing and operational collaboration is a distinguishing factor for organizational success (Loshin, 2008).
Today’s retailer are looking for ways to compensate for increasing competition, price pressure, and operational cost. A customer satisfaction strategy is a top focus, when retailers can enhance their knowledge of the customers across the retail channels, they can strengthen customers’
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Customer data is scattered and duplicated across multiple systems, making it difficult for sales, marketing, operations, and customer service to have a complete and authoritative view of the critical business information (Shankar, 2013). It is not unusual for retailers to have a set of system, such as point of sale (POS), e-commerce, and a call center, which have different formats to create and store data (Shankar, 2013).
Given the fragmentation, it is no surprise retailer face the challenge to manage marketing, sales, and customer service within the tradition stores, the web, and call centers (Wolter and Haselden, 2006). To conquer this difficulty, the retailer must find a way to leverage single version of customer data, create a holistic view of customer data, and harness the overflow of interactive data through social media(Wolter and Haselden, 2006).
Accomplishing this is possible with the implementation of a Master Data Management system. Governing and synchronizing information across channels has become a demanding precedence for retailers implementing an omnichannel strategy. A master data management solution can help retailers address these needs and improve profitability, performance, and customer experience. With an MDM retailers can leverage the complete view making them better able to identify profitability, promising customer, and better understand buying
Target Corporation allocated large budget to upgrade information system as part of a roadmap to transform business (Target Roadmap, 2015). Once the upgrade is completed, it will provide a large amount of intelligent data for internal resources to support customers faster. It further tracks performance and controls accurately the timely information about daily operations in real time. The automated online and on-demand ad-hoc reports generate reports for each store any time as well retains records of products and services.
As a consultant to Target retail group I would recommend dashboards to be introduced in the business.Dashboard technology is helping industries move in a new world by converting real time data into visually impactful, interactive platforms.There are several factors that determine the management’s decision for using dashboard systems which serves as a useful tool to remain competitive in any industry.
A store like Nordstrom has built a successful model on availability of knowledgeable salespeople, and other luxury or near-luxury retailers would be advised to pay attention. But a mass retailer like Target is not dependent on “high touch” customer service; rather, the most important things it can do to satisfy its shoppers are to ensure that goods are on the shelf and the checkout process is efficient. As more consumers migrate to
Consumers are always satisfied with good customer service. When it comes to retail store customer service and satisfaction it is important because department stores are large in size and finding help can be difficult. Colloquy, a company concerned with building customer value, released a survey and asked 3,000 consumers across five geographical areas to rate their personal experiences with retailers. Macy’s was ranked number one in the department store category, with the most loyal customers. To keep up with technology advances Macy’s has invested time and money into developing a more efficient online shopping site, Macys.com and Macysweddingchannel. This investment cost nearly $300 million in 2006-2008 is being used to scale-up these fast-growing businesses through improvements in delivery efficiency, online site functionality and customer service. To enhance the shopping experience at Macy’s 100 stores in 2007 experienced remodeling and began introducing the most advanced POS registers and systems to the sales floors nationwide. Macy’s passion is product and people. There continuing pursuit is to have unique fashionable merchandise ready for customer satisfaction. Macy’s promise is to always carry the best brands and the most-wanted items. They also believe in hiring the right employees. With the right employees, there will be a sense of motivation and helpfulness. The American Customer Satisfaction Index covers 200 companies’ products and
Technology trends are related to the widespread adoption of mobile platforms, the Green IT movement, the open source software, cloud computing and the digital data genesis phenomena. the amount of data that is used everyday speaks to the way that companies are evolving and businesses are updating. Our wiki will focus on the latest trend: the Digital Data Genesis and it 's impact on the MGM Grand Casino-Las Vegas (Taylor). (Alyssa-Edited) Digital data can provide new opportunities for firms. Companies may have to deal with a high volume of transactional data, “capturing trillions of bytes of information about their customers and operations” (Vitari and Raguseo, p. 76) (Taylor). “Millions of sensors are embedded in the physical world in devices such as mobile phones, smart energy meters, automobiles, and industrial machines that sense, create and communicate data in the digitalized age”. (Vitari and Raguseo, p. 78) (Taylor). DDG further explained: When a process is “digitalized (e.g., a purchasing of a good on the Internet), it is carried out through a digital computer or device. When an entity is digitalized (e.g., an RFID-enabled good track), the company has the ability to access an informational representation of that entity (e.g., the position of a good along the supply chain), and generate relevant data from it” (Vitari and Raguseo, p. 84) (Taylor). . All of the data is generated in digital forms. To understand this concept, consider three examples, “ the usage of RFID
Only 22% of consumers say the average retailer understands them as an individual, and only 21% say the communication they receive from the average retailer are “usually relevant”. Most companies understand how critical is to do better – 88% say their growth depends on personalising the customer experience – but lack the resources and expertise to design an improved customer journey. Only 37% believe they have the
Loblaw used to save store and vendor information in different types of Legacy systems, for example, the vendors’ sales data is stored in the system called Bi-query, and the vendor stores payment records can be found in Customer Information Control System (CICS). However, given the size and complexity of Loblaw, it is hard to remain competitive without a system that can integrate information from all business areas and provide real-time information updates of critical information so that an entire enterprise may function as one. Therefore, Loblaw starts to transfer store and vendor data from Legacy systems, into a more efficient and powerful system called SAP.
The development of the Internet and more specifically the business website has seen brand recognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. However, internet sales for these brick and mortar stores have increasingly risen over the last few years to compete with the retail stores like Amazon that are strictly internet based businesses. Brick and mortar retail stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Nordstrom, have each designed their websites to reflect the overall retail marketing strategy as well as the individual marketing strategies that have made their brick and mortar businesses successful.
Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.
Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.
Customer satisfaction and service quality are the two important components that direct anyone’s attention in every concept related to marketing, services, etc. (Spreng and Mackoy, 2006). In today’s competitive era, the success lies in
The merging of the customer data from sales and the call center interactions has created the more informed interactions with the customer (Petersen, 2004). The concept rang with the user organizations and mergers and acquisitions created a host of software that the vendors claimed to have an integrated set of capabilities that became known as customer relationship management (Petersen, 2004). Companies wanted to learn more about each and every individual customer and use the information to effectively take care of and manage their relationships, and yet increased customer satisfaction and profit.
Finally, after realising the seriousness of the issue the President of Toyota Motors insisted for a centralised database management, with all customers’ records being stored in a single database. Although it seems to be a very easy task to collect all the records from different locations and then compiling it in a single database, but it was not as simple and easy for Toyota because it involved a series of data management processes.
Technology provides many benefits to the retail industry and its managers; it also has drawbacks. Implementing new technologies presents learning curves for managers, staff, and team members and introduces new areas of risk (Davis, 2007). Some team members can be resistant to changes causing retailers to lose time
The satisfaction of customers would effect on a company 's success in their financial performance and customers ' loyalty. The satisfied customers mean people who are willing to purchase products, visiting the store or services repeatedly (Siu and Cheung, 2001; Raphel, 1999; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Srinivasan et al., 2002). Trying to understand how customers think and what make them behave in the way they do. For the convenience store industry to increase sales is how to make customer have more reason come to the store and extend their staying time. Therefore, increasing consumers’ loyalty to the store has been a directorial challenge to retailers. To gain the in-depth understanding and empirical estimation of customers loyalty behaviour