How to ensure business success with supply chain and retail data monetization?
With majorly every business opting for digitalization, connected devices and systems are generating data in bulk. This untapped, scattered, and unstructured data is the new fuel for a growing economy. The vast amount of information is readily accessible at a single click.
This is providing organizations with the power of generating crucial business insights. The same information can be used for creating transformative experiences for businesses and customers.
In this article, we will be elaborating on how you, as a business owner of a retail chain, can tap into the supply chain and retail data monetization. To make the most of this data, retail businesses need to refine and process the bulk into understandable information.
Why must you care for any residue data? Because in this age of data analytics, idle datasets are like an underutilized asset that can fuel business growth. Be it the geographic information or the customer purchase history, data is important for both retailers and supply chain providers. It gives them an opportunity to extract insights into their:
- business activity
- customer behavior
- various market trends
What is retail data monetization?
Retail data monetization is the process of using your company’s transaction and customer data to optimize the way you make and spend money.
Ways of monetizing data
There are two ways to monetize retail and supply chain data:
- Direct monetization
- Indirect monetization
We will be talking more about indirect retail data monetization here as it’s more relatable to retailers.
So, what is indirect monetization?
When retail decides to utilize their historical data for optimization of business strategy, it comes under indirect data monetization. These strategies are devised for deriving more economic benefits.
The strategy can be for -
- finding budget-friendly operations
- finding the demographic where your product is popular
- using data for targeting an advertisement to a particular demographic
Data monetization is in part an element of digital transformation the business world is experiencing. That’s why modern businesses that have embedded or decide to embed digital transformation will benefit from data monetization much faster.
Many disruptive technologies have allowed retailers to avail data monetization and capabilities to explore the in-depth insight it provides. Retailers that adopt the right technological stack are opening up impressive opportunities to monetize their unstructured data.
Several ways to monetize data generated throughout the retail industry and supply chain
1. Adapting predictive analytics
Predictive analytics is helpful in extracting useful insights from data for retailers and supply chain providers. Retail and supply chain transformation can combine and enrich pricing, inventory, and customer behavior data. Doing so enables the companies to -
- make intelligent forecasts
- follow market trends
- develop recommendation engines for future customer purchases
By aligning and compiling the unstructured data, retailers and supply chain companies can -
- streamline their store shelves
- run leaner operations
- offer better product selections
- anticipate demand
2. Developing Revenue Models
As a retailer, how do you plan to succeed? Customer footfall and repeating customers, right? Keeping customers coming back more than twice is every retailer’s dream. By analyzing customer and supply chain data, you can discover new revenue models.
These revenue models can be more focused on operating in innovative ways and customer-centric in nature. E-commerce subscriptions and recurring revenue program data can help retailers convert one-time buyers into loyal customers.
3. Refining the targeted advertisement
Digital marketing tools are empowering retail brands to reach customers across a wide variety of platforms. This has already eliminated the need to rely on expensive intermediaries. They can use the datasets available to present their brands or products directly in front of their target audience in the form of an advertisement.
Many retailers are investing in data-driven ad tech that responsibly uses first-party shopping data to target customers. This merger also allows retailers to save much money spent on ineffective advertising.
4. Enhancing your customer satisfaction
Keeping customers happy is essential to make them come back and shop with you. Modern retailers and brand owners are looking to identify the methods that can help in boosting customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction is part of your long-term strategy. You can achieve customer satisfaction by ensuring they can look for their products and make a purchase without pain or friction.
With data analytics, you can start understanding your customers’ needs better. Retail and supply chain companies can improve customer journeys using insights into how customers interact with brands.
The same data can also be fed into a CRM (customer relationship management) system, allowing brands to automate their outreach and build long-term relationships with new and existing customers.
5. Planning traffic routes for smoother supply chain management
If you have physical retail stores, planning the location and layout of the store can help in a big way. With your previous datasets, you can plan your supply chain as per the shopping trends and the vendor location. Other data that can come in handy for your retail brand is the overall traffic, geographical density, etc., that can help you build stores at locations ideal for the customers. Additional data points can also help you develop a positive retail experience and smoother logistics operation.
6. Compiling data of things and people using IoT devices
You can gain clear visibility into the flow and storage of goods with data analytics. Using sensors, trackers, and other connected Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, retailers and supply chain vendors can better track and analyze their inventory.
IoT implementation in retail produces real-time data regarding their -
- item’s location
- shipment status
- delivery ETA
- instore item availability
All the data collected by IoT devices helps retailers and supply chain companies to optimize their retail operations, cut down on miscellaneous costs and boost customer satisfaction.
Why is data monetization beneficial for retail and supply chains?
Data monetization helps retailers cut down on the supply chain and revenue maximization. Many retailers in the current market are enjoying the benefit of leveraging their data. So, what type of benefits are we talking about?
The benefits like -
- understanding consumer behavior in a much better manner
- developing cost-cutting strategies
- insight into services, productivity, and efficiency
Top Benefits of supply chain and retail data monetization
Let’s talk about the benefits of data monetization for retail businesses.
1. Optimised supply and service delivery chains
Once you start tapping into unstructured data using advanced data analytics, you start improving their supply chain.
As a supplier, you plan the best route, timing and help your retail clients replenish their stocks.
As a retailer, you can keep tabs on your inventory, manage curbside and last-mile deliveries, and provide a better customer experience.
Retailers can unravel many things by decrypting their in-store and supply chain data.
They can also use in-store video surveillance to know -
- Which aisle is most frequented?
- Where is the most bought product kept?
- Where do they look while shopping in a particular aisle?
- Which product do they pick up the most while at the check-out counter?
2. Increased product and service offerings efficiency
When you start crunching the data, you can create better revenue schemes for new product launches too. Based on all the previously compiled data, you can pan the product placement on the most frequented aisle or instore area.
You can collect trends related to age, choice, product, and price preference and plan everything for the new product accordingly.
Leveraging your data will allow you to sell your product profitably.
Concluding thoughts: Retailers should opt for data monetization
You are sitting on top of untapped retail data that wants to be decrypted and can help you gain a competitive edge. As a retail brand, staying relevant with your current customer base and increasing new footfall is equally essential.
We understand that urge to be the best. We have helped one of our clients, America’s largest manufacturers and distributors of commercial hardware products with 40+ distribution and corporate facilities.
If you want to align your legacy system with disruptive technologies to gain a competitive advantage in this competitive market, then let’s get in touch.
