December 16, 2019 Industry news
Data transformation may seem like a buzzword in the retail industry, but data accuracy has never been more important. We teamed up with Tesco and Unilever, on the Table Talk podcast, to discuss why data is now at the heart of customer experience.
Shoppers have become more demanding. We expect rich, accurate data on everything we purchase – from provenance to allergens, packaging composition to calorie counts, and everything in between.
However, in order to share this information with shoppers, retailers and manufacturers not only need to provide an exhaustive list of product attributes to answer all the potential questions a shopper may have, but also ensure that that data is 100 per cent accurate.
Simple enough, right?
Well when you consider that each product can have up to 170 unique attributes, all of which need to be shared with multiple retailers who are currently asking for the information to be processed in slightly different ways, the probability of an error occurring in that data starts to increase.
That is without factoring in that product data is rarely stored in one central repository. Multiple teams can hold specific pieces of information on a product. For example, promotional information may sit with marketing or the information on a product’s origin may sit with sourcing teams. This results in many brands and manufacturers being left without a single source of truth for their product data.
Without a standardised way of storing, managing and sharing this crucial product data throughout the retail supply chain, it will be shoppers who suffer from poor, inconsistent or inaccurate information - meaning they are less able to make informed decisions about the products they buy.
A retail revolution, for all
To discuss how the retail industry is using data transformation to provide a more informed decision making process for shoppers, we teamed up with Food Matters Live, on their Table Talk podcast, to explore what retailers, manufacturers and the industry as a whole are doing to exceed shopper expectations.
Lending their valuable insights to the podcast were:
- Paul Sumner, programme manager at Tesco
- Richard Sadler, customer director at Unilever
- Dan Sands, head of brand engagement at GS1 UK
Listen to the full podcast below:
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