Accenture: Big Data critical to retail

New York – Almost all retailers consider Big Data to be important, according to a new survey from Accenture Analytics. When asked how important is Big Data to their organization, 94% of retail executives answered “important,” 58% responded “extremely important,” and 36% responded “important.”



About seven-in-10 (68%) respondents in the “Big Success with Big Data ” study said that the impetus for big data in their organization is to maintain competitiveness, and 82% of retail executives surveyed said that they agree that big data is changing the way they interact and relate to their customers.



For retail executives, the top three reasons for using big data are analyzing customer behavior (56%), bringing together different data sources (49%) and improving personalization (48%). The top functions in which retail executives are using big data are marketing (63%) and IT (42%) And 68% of retail executives are using (not just collecting) customer online purchasing data



When asked where they think Big Data will have the biggest impact on their organization in the next five years, retail executives responded with their top three as: impacting customer relationships (62%), changing the way they organize operations (56%) and redefining product development (53%) When asked to what extent they are using Big Data for new sources of revenue, 55% of retail executives said they are using it extensively



In addition, 48% of retail executives surveyed said they’re using Big Data extensively for customer retention and future acquisition, and 53% said they’re using it extensively for the customer experience.



The top three challenges to implementing Big Data in a company for retail executives are:

• Security (43%)


• Budget (46%)


• Lack of talent to implement Big Data (31%)