Retail Systems Research (RSR) just published their latest paper, “Marketing in Retail: Making the Case for the CMO, Benchmark Report 2012”. This paper is based on a survey that RSR conducted from June – Sept of this year which they used to assess the marketing role across the retail industry, as well as to compare differences between companies that are outperforming the overall industry against those that are performing at or below the industry average. The survey looks at both Marketing’s role within retail organizations, along with Marketing teams’ business challenges and opportunities. RSR’s findings and recommendations focus around the concept of how retailers can successfully transition from a traditional product focus to becoming customer-centric organizations.
There are many fascinating results in this paper, and here are a couple that caught my eye:
- Of the various challenges that retail marketers face in implementing their marketing strategy, four of the top five challenges were related to analytics – these included both front-end customer insight and back-end campaign/tactics analysis.
- In ranking their marketing departments’ priorities, the overall highest ranked activities (1st or 2nd priorities identified by the largest number of respondents) were “build the brand” and “drive sales”. The lowest ranked activities (6th or 7th priorities identified by the largest number of respondents) were “engage customers”, “build customer loyalty” and “communicate promotions”. I understand that retail marketers are looking to serve a more strategic function than pushing promotions, but I found a disconnect in these other low ranked responses – engaged, loyal customers are essential for building successful brands (just look at Apple).
Click here to download the paper and see the full set of results, along with RSR’s findings and recommendations. Disclosure: PivotLink is a sponsor of this report, but was not involved in conducting the survey or writing the paper.
Siloed information channels present a challenge for Winner retailers and Laggard retailers alike. Seventy-five percent of survey respondents identified siloed operations as the biggest inhibitor to launching an enterprise-wise BI strategy. Fortunately, departments currently locked into information silos now have the ability to break free and receive a 360 degree view of the supply chain right up to point-of-sale. However, it’s important that companies develop modern and personalized delivery methods for this information. For example, look at the chart above. While dashboards appear to be the preferred delivery method of C-level and Line of Business executives who spend a lot of time at their desks, store managers and employees need instantaneous data beyond the office. Unfortunately, the delivery methods identified here require the recipient to perform analytical analyses to achieve a course of action. While an executive might have time to ponder information in a dashboard, store employees can’t be expected to devote their attention to an in-depth analysis of a customer’s purchase information when the customer is standing right in front of them.