Blockchain & IOT, the sails of the new retail. What is their compass?
Gone are the days of manual management in the market. Retailing can no longer be called ‘brick and mortar’ as it has witnessed a turnaround strategy with major tech enabled innovations. Some of them are IOT, Blockchain, and sentiment analysis. Such is the shift that retailing today has become a therapy in itself.
The introduction of Blockchain though shrouded in secrecy due to its infamous link to crypto currency, has brought the much-needed respite to retailing by fetching real time data. The consumer acquires the power to verify the authenticity and safety of goods bought. It ensures trading in ethically sourced products ranging from charity to food labels to social media to utilities. It allows tracing the origin of products, providing food safety and preventing counterfeiting. It also has brought transparency in supply chain as everything is traceable from production to retailing. Example: Starbucks, where blockchain aids the tracking of coffee from the bean to the cup. Blockchain provides a remarkably high level of safety and security when it comes to exchanging data, information, and money.
Internet of things or IOT as it is fondly known is a connected experience where time is the essence. An eager shopper need only walk into a store where he will be greeted on his connected device and guided to the required aisle. There his chosen product after purchase will be scanned, the automated checkout procedure initiated, and the required amount deducted from his payment application. All this, in the shortest span of time. What’s more is that the smart shelves are embedded with sensors which send message to replenish the items running low and keep real time information on inventory. IOT also reduces instore theft. It allows layout optimization of positioning products based on their popularity so that products can be kept at arm’s length of customers than the one whose movement is dawdling. IOT optimizes supply chain with embedded REID and GPS sensors which allows for temperature checks and analysis of time spent in transit.
Let’s deep dive into what is sentiment analysis: Sentiment analysis is monitoring customer sentiment towards products, brands or services in online conversations and feedback to take actionable decisions to improve the offering by the company. It is an extensively used in retailing that collects data from social media platforms and analyzes trends and changing behavioral patterns. Since data is real time, management can take corrective action at the right moment. Comments, hashtags, reviews, and tweets are analyzed to arrive at changing patterns and preferences. Many times, they are used to manage reputation, plan product improvements, prioritize customer service issues and determine the most effective communication channels. At other times, it becomes a strong resolve to bring in innovative technology to solve the problem and improve sentiments. It is a widely accepted thought that analytics will help product decisions, finance decisions and marketing. It is interesting to realize that analytics is the compass to initiate new technological disruptions for a company. While all these technologies are sails of the boat (company), analytics is definitely the underrated compass which the company can use to achieve its goals.
“Without data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.” – Geoffrey Moore, author, and consultant
We at Nu-Pie have the experience, people (techies, analysts, and data scientists) and processes to help you achieve your business goals through analytics including sentiment analysis. Reach out to us for more details.
Author: Jerrin Thomas; C0-Author: Benila Jacob
