The Latest Analytics Trends in Retail, Marketing, and Insurance
It’s no secret that analytics has become a crucial aspect helping to facilitate most companies’ operations. Consumers today create endless streams of data that is vital to understanding their shopping preferences, health profiles, and interests. If you could know exactly what your customers were going to want before they do, wouldn’t you invest in that technology?
Analytics as a field, however, is still very much evolving and constantly improving. More importantly, technological innovation and new paradigms are continuously changing how data is gathered, processed, visualized, and turned into actionable insights.
This means something different for each industry, but the reality is such that expanded use of analytics and business intelligence is a plus for every field. As companies become more skilled at perception, they can also change the way they do business, helping to improve customer satisfaction and their processes.
For retail, insurance, and marketing, analytics is rapidly emerging as a central decision-making pillar. The degree of understanding data offers companies about their consumers means they can and already have reconsidered their offerings. From the way they communicate with consumers to how services and products are presented, these analytics trends are about to transform these three industries tremendously.
It’s easy to see how analytics has already changed the retail industry. Inventory management, payroll, promotions, and even prices have all become more dynamic as retailers understand how to best manage these components to maximize their bottom lines and offer better customer service. For retailers, understanding the flows of their stores and products, as well as knowing how to streamline their sales across platforms, is essential to spurring continued growth.
The Internet of Things has long since stopped being a buzzword and is now a real innovation industry. As more devices connect to the internet and provide data, companies will be able to analyze and collect almost endless streams of actionable information from their consumers.
The Silicon Valley giants are already well ahead in the industry, with devices such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa already collecting consumer shopping preferences, online habits, and other usage data. Mobile phones and wearable tech also mean companies can understand how their customers shop at their stores and the places they frequent most.
WiFi sensors can be used to locate store hotspots, visualize consumer flow through stores, and even track visit history. This information can be used to improve operations and enhance efficiency. More importantly, these IoT data-streams can lead companies to turn this information into action across multiple channels.
This flood of behavioral data will come from multiple channels and can help retailers find the best ways to expand their omnichannel operations. Retailers can turn this data into a more streamlined multi-channel funnel, as well as expand their services across all avenues. For retailers shifting towards e-commerce from brick and mortar, it also means that cross-border sales will become significantly easier to generate. Most shoppers already buy internationally every month, and e-commerce is likely to develop into a trillion-dollar industry in the not too distant future.
Turning IoT data into action means that companies must correctly parse and interpret information about their consumers’ behaviors and shopping preferences. Powerful solutions empower companies to uncover the best ways to improve the customers’ journeys across their entire platforms.
These two interrelated retail analytics trends will continue to change how stores are built, which products or services are delivered, and how companies offer their services across channels.
The insurance industry has always been data-driven.
