Retail IT Systems

Retail IT Systems include:

Point of Sale [POS] - New POS systems collect massive volumes of data.

Stock Management - Retailers accept IT software and hardware systems as mission critical operational. Many organizations have implemented highly sophisticated programs that control the flow of merchandise throughout the enterprise, and also support planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting systems.

Merchandising - Sophisticated merchandising systems support a high number of internal buyers and the vendors as well as store transactions.

Operations & Finance - Many retail chains have invested significant sums on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in an effort to improve accounts payable, general ledger and other accounting functions.

Integration Issues

In spite of the huge investments made in the above system, most generally operate on different IT platforms that do not communicate with each other. The impact of this on BI capability, is that the information in these systems is not effectively integrated into a common analytical layer that utilizes common databases and information delivery mechanisms. This severly limits the use of reporting and analysis systems that support the BI overarching premise of 'Single Version of Truth'.

Lack of integration between Merchandise and Operations Planning is the rule rather than the exception for most retailers. This means that Business Intelligence systems [analytics, applications and platforms] that are deployed are generally ineffective in meeting the logic driven presight required today.

This lack of integration leads to the typical business unit spreadmarts that rely on re-keying data into basic spreadsheets, providing reports that vary between finance, store managers, stock managers and executives.

Information is highly unreliable, inconsistent and out of date, even at its earliest availability.

Next: The Future Retail BI Architecture

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