Geographic Insight Is Key to Pinpointing Success

Retailers have access to more data about their business performance, shopper behavior and overall market than ever before. But to win in today’s hyper-competitive environment, retailers need to be able to turn that data into actionable insight at a localized level. It is not enough to have deep insight into the industry and your business at a 10,000-foot view. You must be able to bring that insight down to a localized geographic level and make vital business decisions based on the local market. To uncover how retailers can discover and leverage geographic data to gain a competitive edge, Esri’s retail industry manager, Gary Sankary sat down with RIS for an exclusive Q&A on the topic. RIS: What does holistic analytics mean to you and how does it help organizations improve their retail IQ? Sankary: Retailers have to be able to consume and interrogate large sets of disparate data, it is a key capability. Traditionally, retailers have measured success based on individual store performance, aka comp store sales. It’s like each store is somehow an individual contributor to the enterprise. This model falls short in a unified commerce environment. Best-in-class retailers today are looking at total market performance and evaluating stores in terms of their influence and contribution to that market. Think about the Halo effect. Customers pass stores on their way to work and school, and are influenced to make more purchases from that brand’s e-commerce site, sometimes bypassing the stores. We have to start looking at markets and data from our markets far more holistically to understand all of the complex influencers that are driving store success. RIS: Can you discuss the advances in geographic information and how it can be leveraged to gain a real-time view of the local market? Sankary: Geography adds context to retail transactions. Understanding why things happen where they do enables retailers to predict, or forecast, where they might happen again and at what velocity. Customer Engagement is one of the most important capabilities retailers need to master today. The tactics for this capability include personalization and segmentation. Hyper-localization, tailoring offers to specific locations, is how leading retailers are winning the battle against the competition, both digitally and in brick and mortar. Machine learning is already changing the way retailers think about their analytics. In the past, data scientists were constrained in the amount of data they could leverage by the technology available. Machine learning has upended this because now users have no constraints on data. The tools can find subtle correlations in massive data sets that in the recent past could only be found by experience or luck. Indoor Location Technology is allowing retailers to leverage the capabilities of location intelligence technology within the four walls of a store. It gives retailers new insights about how customers are interacting with the physical store. Retailers know where customers go, where they linger, and where they are when they are looking for something. Indoor is also helping retailers empower store teams with location-based activities and location contextual customer service. RIS: How are savvy retailers leveraging this vital intelligence to get a leg up on the competition? Sankary: Customer analytics is so critical today. Being able to understand who customers are, what they want, and how they buy has never been more important. Savvy retailers are using GIS and location intelligence in a number of innovative ways to achieve this: Understanding the geographic attributes of their best customers, who and where they are, and how they behave. Location Intelligence brings precision to this analysis. Retailers can better understand their best customers and reach more consumers just like them in the hopes of earning more “best” customers. Creating relevant offers, attuned to the preferences and tastes of the shoppers who visit specific stores. Understanding the complex and integrated market dynamics that drive store and market success though visualization and spatial analytics. RIS: How does a geographic information system (GIS) allow retailers to glean invaluable insight from unstructured data? Sankary: As long as there is a geographic reference in data, an address or a coordinate, any kind of data can be joined in GIS. Location is the key that gives data a common reference, so that the spatial analytics capacities of GIS can be applied and insights derived. RIS: What does the future hold for the evolving GIS space? Sankary: I think the future for GIS is very exciting. Data continues to drive retail. Retailers continue to step up the level of interaction, personalized service and offers they give to their customers. The business is changing very quickly and from a customer perspective, experiences are improving and shopping is getting easier and more personalized. Location Intelligence is in the unique position to provide retailers with a tool that can strategically consume and interrogate location specific data, which in turn empowers retailers to provide the sorts of personalized experiences for their customers they need to compete.

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