Retail's Data-Driven Future: Turning Insights Into Action

Forbes

15-04-2025

According to a new report released from SAP Emarsys, 51% of U.S. brands say their organization suffers from 'dark data,' which is data that is collected but not effectively used.
By Balaji Balasubramanian, President and Chief Product Officer for SAP Customer Experience and Consumer Industries
In today's retail landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. Shoppers want to move effortlessly between in-store visits, mobile browsing, social commerce, and digital marketplaces, expecting every interaction to be seamless and personalized.
Behind the scenes, retailers struggle to deliver these experiences due to fragmented, outdated, and incomplete data that makes real-time decision-making nearly impossible and hampers engagement, operational efficiency, and, ultimately, profitability.
When retailers' data exists in silos, the problem is compounded from all angles. With sales, inventory, marketing, and customer engagement data living in separate systems, retailers lack the clear view of customer behavior and business insights they need to respond with critical actions in real time. Lack of context within the data means businesses struggle to extract meaningful insights.
Consider the impact:
At a moment when retailers must optimize every facet of their business to remain competitive, a unified data strategy isn't optional—it's essential.
To break these silos, retailers need a unified data foundation—one that consolidates insights across all customer touchpoints, enabling real-time intelligence and business agility. SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) is an integrated solution that can bring data together from all sources, owned and external, to help create a single, trusted source of truth.
With SAP Business Data Cloud, retailers can have the total picture of data from sales, inventory, marketing, loyalty, service, and near-real-time statuses of third-party logistics.
With this holistic view, retailers can:
By shifting to a data-first approach, retailers can move beyond managing transactions to driving intelligent, customer-centric experiences for long-term loyalty and growth.
Despite the rise of e-commerce, more than 80% of retail interactions still take place in physical stores. Brick-and-mortar locations remain central to the retail journey, yet, as retailers' largest cost center, they also encompass the biggest operational challenges—from inventory carrying costs to labor and store operations.
Although today's consumers are fluid in how they shop—researching products across multiple platforms or buying online and picking up in-store, for example—they still expect accurate, real-time visibility into inventory wherever they engage. In this landscape, data is the lifeblood that allows retailers to orchestrate orders, manage workflows, and ensure that customers can trust the information they see. Yet, according to a new report released from SAP Emarsys, 51% of U.S. brands say their organization suffers from 'dark data,' which is data that is collected but not effectively used.
To remain competitive, retailers must harness real-time transactional insights to optimize store efficiency, maximize revenue, and provide seamless customer interactions.
For Hornbach, one of the largest DIY stores in Germany, the idea of interconnected retail is more than just omnichannel. It needs to be able to add new channels quickly—and to maintain a seamless customer experience over all channels.
Hornbach adopted SAP Order Management Services as a foundation for this vision, enabling the flexibility to address new markets quickly, connect new systems, process orders rapidly and efficiently, and adopt new innovations. With the addition of SAP Omnichannel Sales and Transfer Audit, the Hornbach team expects to get more visibility in day-to-day operations, like checking fraud detection and the completeness of transactions.
'The most exciting thing will be the combination of all these new technologies we're seeing: artificial intelligence, event-driven architecture, as well as native cloud solutions,' said Carsten Mueller, head of Enterprise Architecture and Security, Hornbach. 'The combination will give Hornbach great power in the next year.'
The retail industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, with AI redefining how businesses operate and interact with customers. According to the same SAP Emarsys report, 89% of U.S. consumer product marketers believe AI will be essential for engaging new customers. However, the effectiveness of AI hinges on the reliability and accuracy of the data it processes.
Retailers that embrace AI-powered data intelligence will lead the next era of omnichannel excellence. The future isn't just about connecting data—it's about activating it in real time to drive seamless customer interactions.
To stay ahead, retailers must:
As omnichannel complexity grows, brands that fail to unify their data risk falling behind. SAP Business Data Cloud and intelligent order management solutions can provide the foundation for a future-proof transformation. As AI continues to evolve, retailers must shift from reactive decision-making to proactive, predictive commerce, where every transaction is optimized for efficiency and profitability.
The future of retail is here. Those who harness AI to unify, analyze, and act on their data will define the next generation of customer experience and retail success. I'm excited to partner with companies navigating this transformation and empower them to seize new opportunities for success.
Learn more about SAP's solutions for retail.