Canadian Retailer - Store 2014 - 35

These statistics demonstrate the current
state of retail, not the future state. They are
characterized by two critical elements that
have transformed the sector worldwide: the
connected consumer, and the integration of
technology and social media.
Today's customer is more educated about
products than ever before, and empowered
by technology. This shift in power, facilitated
by the marrying of technology with social
media and aided by mobile devices, has put
customers in the driver's seat.

According to the article 'Three key
differences between Big Data and
analytics' written by Nestor E. Arellano and published in IT World in
September 2013, Wal-Mart collects
more than 2.5 petabytes of data every
hour from customer transactions
alone. A petabyte is one quadrillion
bytes or about the equivalent of 20
million cabinets of text.
The changes occurring in the retail industry presently are revolutionary-not evolutionary. Another critical element in this
revolution in retail is the concept of mobility. According to Google data, 56 per cent
of Canadian consumers own a smartphone,
a further 87 per cent of those users utilize
other devices simultaneously at least once
a week, and 86 per cent of consumers' daily
media interactions are on mobile.
Social and mobile have been here for
some time and will continue to be a part of
the retail experience going forward. Clearly,
customers expect the retail experience to be
seamless-mobile is the remote control for
shopping in today's world.
To demonstrate how to build an effective
foundation for an omnichannel strategy, global
retailers are doing significant things around
predictive data, modeling and forecasting customer behaviours throughout the entire shopping cycle. With the use of data and analytics,
they have started to market products and
services to potential customers before they
even know that they need or want the product.
However, according to KPMG's Going Beyond
the Data study, only 7 of 10 CFOs and CIOs
believe that data and analytics is either 'very'

important or 'crucially' important to their business strategies,
only 22 per cent of Canadian CEOs say they have started a 'Big
Data' initiative and just a third of the remainder believe it likely
that they will start one in the future. The unrealized potential
is that Canadian retailers are not taking advantage of the immense amount of information available to them.
What does this mean for retailers? You now have insight
about your customer such as; demographics, preferences,
where your customer has physically been, and where they intend to go, for example "checking-in" at restaurants or retail
locations utilizing social channels. Use of data and analytics
allows for more targeted marketing campaigns, and when
coupled with social media, it provides knowledge to enable
you to cultivate a degree of 'intimacy' with your customer. It
makes them feel as though you truly 'know them'.

Brisebois: Some fascinating statistics to consider! Who is
the customer of today and how are they shaping this transformation in retail?
Irvine: I think what has been transformative is the amount
of information that is available to us. I believe it was Eric
Schmidt from Google who said, "Every two days now, we create as much information from the dawn of civilization up to
the year 2003." This is the biggest macro trend in five years.
We have all of this information about our customer and they
too have access to all of this information about products and
competitors. What remains constant in all of this-is our
memory. We simply cannot process all of this information.
People use technology and turn to their online communities,
their friends, their families, to make sense of all of the data
because it can be overwhelming. Fueled by social media, this
now means that the customer is clearly in control of the information. What does this mean? Canadian retailers need to
raise the bar. Think about it-not only are you competing with
everything on Facebook, Google and Pinterest, but you are
also competing with their personal lives. Their sister's wedding pictures, their kid's birthday party and every other life
event that takes precedence. How do you compete with that?
From a marketing standpoint, you need to focus on what's

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