Cloud Migration is a Boon to Operations. But It Creates a Perfect Storm of Data Challenges
As businesses prepare for the post-pandemic uptick in consumer spending, now is the time to take inventory of the optimal sources and types of data they can use to track customer preferences. This is one tactic that might help edge out the competition and make the most of economic recovery.
To do that successfully means companies must ensure their data systems can accommodate the agility, security, volume, and velocity necessary for effective integration that supports real-time operational analytics and business decision making. The heightened awareness of the value that data systems can bring to enterprises amidst post-pandemic transformation and modernization, for example through cloud adoption, will help businesses reinvent economically-critical business sectors, such as retail, where there are increasing premiums put on customer engagement.
The pandemic drastically changed the way consumer-centric businesses operate. It shut down brick and mortar stores, prompted employees to work remotely, and put added pressure on IT and security organizations, who, virtually overnight, had to ensure that remote work capabilities, digital customer experiences, and operational systems were firing on all cylinders.
When physical stores closed quickly, successful retail businesses recognized that digital operations were the new face of their companies. Case in point, Macy’s, the longstanding American department store chain founded in 1858, knew even before the pandemic that technology modernization would be key to meeting the growing expectations of shoppers.
Its pivot toward modernization, centered on cloud adoption, was instrumental to improving digital and mobile experiences, site stability, store technology, fulfillment and logistics, and integrating its front line and back office. Ultimately, these digital capabilities helped Macy’s weather the pandemic storm, turning a profit from Q4 2020 into Q1 2021, preventing the eventuality of bankruptcy that many of its competitors faced, and leading to a strong sense of optimism for the future hinged on strong online growth.
With excellent customer service at the heart of Macy’s modernization initiative, the company focused on creating a technology stack that would enable it to tap into the power of real-time data to solve critical pieces of the retail puzzle. From optimizing inventory management, to increasing collaboration between employees across locations and roles, to helping build omnichannel experiences for customers, Macy’s modernization efforts resulted in the ability to create seamless and personalized shopping experiences that have become vital to its competitive advantage.
Prior to the pandemic, cloud programs were a nice-to-have option. The pandemic greatly accelerated cloud adoption as companies came to realize that the agility, cost, performance and security that the cloud offers could be their critical lifeline. Cloud adoption is now considered a necessity by many in IT organizations across industries. Those that were especially affected by the pandemic (airlines, entertainment, retail, lodging, etc.) have turned to the cloud to streamline and reduce costs, such as expenditures on data centers and the operations staff, cooling energy, and other factors needed to support more traditional operations.
While cloud adoption also lays the groundwork for transformation, it can also create a perfect storm that presents a number of data challenges related to how information is stored, accessed and analyzed. Notably, there’s a time value to data, particularly for companies that cater to fickle consumers in quickly evolving industries like retail. There is limited utility to customer data if enough time passes between when it is collected and when it is analyzed. The useful lifespan of data is painfully short – only 30 minutes for tactical data and eight hours for operational data, according to a Nucleus Research study.
