New research is showing that retailers need to respond more quickly to consumer sentiment before they over commit to inventory purchases. That’s just one of the insights in a report from RSR Research, sponsored in part by the National Retail Federation, titled, “The Democratization of Business Intelligence: How Retailers Sense and Respond Across the Enterprise.”
“We were excited to see the dramatic shift in retailer sentiment about real time business intelligence (BI) tools,” says Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at RSR and co-author of the report. “Retailers do understand the value of delivering actionable information into the hands of those who need it, business operators, even as they move toward simpler and more modern ways to deliver that information.” Adds Brian Kilcourse, also a managing partner at RSR and co-author of the report, “We were equally pleased to see retailers embracing the notion of an enterprise wide BI strategy. Large retailers in particular have developed such strategies, and while they have a long way to go in bridging the gap between the perceived value and what they’ve achieved so far, the steps they’re taking are significant and very real.”
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