Piyush Kumar Chowhan, Group CIO, Lulu Group International
‘Data is the new oil/soil’ has been the narrative across all industries for a few years. However, if data isn’t understood and used properly, it’s just wasted numbers. This was the general consensus during the various panel discussions that took place at 9th edition of the Middle East Retail Forum.
“The reason why some digital transformation journeys are not effective is because they haven’t nurtured customer data”, said Piyush Kumar Chowhan Group CIO of Lulu International Group.
From supply chain to integrated mega distribution to touchless mobile checkout, the processes have already started getting progressively digitized. All this digitization brings with it immense amounts of data that need to utilized optimally.
According to Chowhan, currently retailers and store managers are blind towards the personalities of their customers. “There are customers walking into a store and retailer and store managers have no idea about them. Now people do everything post facto. You throw in options to the customers and then tweak the suggestions according to their feedback”, he said.
This is where customer engagement platforms will play an important role. “If you know what the customer needs before-hand, that’s when the magic will happen. That’s how data becomes the new soil”, he added.
According to him, if you have quality customer data then the need to analyse lost sales would never arise. The key will be nurturing all the processes and monitoring the customer experience journey in order to improve services.
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