We’ve seen unprecedented change over the past few years in the retail landscape and in consumer buying behavior, driven both by the COVID-19 pandemic and by retailers’ digital transformation efforts. A recent report by McKinsey notes that “…in a matter of 90 days we have vaulted forward 10 years in consumer and business digital adoption.”1 And there is no sign that the speed of change is slowing — if anything, it is accelerating.
Although retailers are rich in data, many struggle with fragmentation and data that’s locked away in various enterprise applications. These application silos create multiple versions of the data with varying standards which makes it difficult for the business — sales, marketing, customer service and operations — to gain a complete and trustworthy view of its business-critical data, such as customer data or master data.