87 Percent Of US Retailers Race To Achieve Faster Data-Driven Insights To Support Online Sales

Exasol, the high-performance analytics database, today published new research that reveals since the pandemic started, 87% of retail organizations in the U.S. have been under pressure to make data-driven decisions faster.

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The finding comes from an in-depth research report, “Retail: Decision making during times of uncertainty,” published today that quantifies how retail organizations in the U.S. are heightening data-driven decision-making cycles to meet real-time demand and prepare for surging online sales brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The research shows that 82% of retail organizations in the U.S. are data-driven businesses, yet more than half (61%) of organizations say their current data infrastructure does not allow them to innovate at speed.

Exasol’s report is based on a global survey of 107 U.S. retail decision-makers (from a global total of 2,501) and reveals ample pessimism among data and IT professionals regarding the extent to which current infrastructure set-ups can power a crisis recovery.

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Highlights and key themes from the research:

• The COVID-19 pandemic intensifies retail’s need for speed – The data shows that 87% of retail organizations in the U.S. say they have been under pressure since the start of the pandemic to make decisions faster than ever before. In addition, 79% of retailers agree that shorter decision-making cycles will become the new normal for businesses.

• Retail organizations face technology roadblocks to faster data analytics insights – 61% of retail organizations in the U.S. agree that their current data infrastructure does not allow them to innovate at speed. What’s causing these technology roadblocks?
  • 35% of retailers are not able to tap into new data sources, while 34% of respondents cite lack of business unit access to self-service analytics (i.e., data democratization) as a key challenge.
  • 39% of retail organizations cite deployment challenges, whether in the cloud or on-premises.
  • 26% feel their analytics team doesn’t understand their requirements.
  • 33% of retail organizations in the U.S. agree that query times are too long, and overall analytics performance is too slow.

• Despite technology roadblocks, data decision-making within retail organizations is thriving – 82% of retail organizations in the U.S. report their organization is a data-driven business. In addition, 76% of retail organizations in the U.S. say that they have coped well with the additional pressure brought by shorter decision-making cycles.

• Better data infrastructure is key to winning the race to faster data analytics insights – More than half (52%) of retail organizations in the U.S. believe they will need to make some improvements to their data infrastructure to be able to successfully recover from macro- or micro-economic challenges triggered by the pandemic.

Nuqleous, a leading developer of intelligent technology solutions serving top retail brands, concurs with these research findings based on its recent work with top retailers and consumer product companies.

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