Exclusive Interaction - Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager, Snowflake

Cloud-based data storage, management and analytics have become prime solutions for enterprises now, especially after lockdown. Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager, Snowflake, discusses how retailers can avail of the benefits of data analytics after lockdown.

Post lockdown, what should be the strategy of the IT sector to move forward in the field of retail?

After the lockdown period has ended, IT will play a major role in transforming the retail sector. More retailers have gravitated to E-commerce platforms and mobile apps to continue operations amid the lockdown in response to shifts in consumer behavior and restrictions that only allowed retailers with E-commerce operations to make deliveries of essential items. Snowflake feels that, retailers will increasingly seek to provide services through e-commerce platforms and mobile applications, which requires close partnership with IT departments.

Important IT strategies to help the retail sector modernise operations and embrace E-commerce include augmenting digital infrastructures to cope with spikes in website traffic, enhancing in-store technologies for contactless consumer experience, upgrading critical technology infrastructure to ensure business continuity and introducing digital payment options. Most importantly, retailers will need to focus on improving the security of E-commerce purchases to minimize data theft and malware threats.

With such transformation expected, Snowflake feels that it becomes even more critical for retailers to gravitate towards the adoption of cloud and usage of data analytics; given that the post lockdown period would bring about a brand new set of challenges and opportunities such as much complex supply and distribution chains, competitive pricing etc. The focus on cloud and data analytics can help retailers make the needed adjustments in assortments, pricing, service behaviors, marketing communications, or other customer experience elements that can potentially produce incremental revenue.

 How can data analytics help the retail sector thrive after the lockdown?

Retailers need to have the capability to leverage and analyze data from various sources, such as their website, mobile transactions, data exchanges, and social media, to make more informed business decisions and deliver better customer experiences. However, analysis can be complicated with legacy systems and data silos. Retail organizations are turning to cloud data platforms to overcome these obstacles and create an easy flow of data to transform analytics capabilities and unlock data-driven insights across business functions.

Some examples are given below –

 Data insights can help retailers build elasticity and scale into areas such as supply chain, inventory, logistics, and staffing.

Real-time visibility into these supply and distribution networks, even at the micro level, can also help retailers reduce inefficiencies in the supply chain and anticipate item availability.

How can retail partners help in the growth of cloud technologies?

 Many organisations today are responding to some of the most rapidly changing market conditions since their inception. Underpinning this is an increasing demand for systems that allow rapid decision making, based on a diverse set of internal and external data sources. This is no different from the retail sector.

The common theme is the need for change. Legacy data warehouses were long-term, expensive commitments based on technology that was designed when data was simpler and fewer people were needed to access the database.  Snowflake feels that this    is not just about helping in the growth of cloud technologies but rather how can retailers adopt these technologies to make them more competitive and relevant.

The cloud can break down barriers to the easy flow of data, transform analytics capabilities, and unlock data-driven insights. We have made a recent recent announcement of the general availability of Snowflake on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the AWS Asia Pacific (India) Region. This will help India businesses in the retail sector the flexibility, scalability and elasticity for quick access to data insights safely and securely.

Why moving to a cloud data platform can be beneficial for retailers –

Predictive analytics

Faster product lifecycles and increasingly complicated operations are pushing retailers to identify areas in the supply chain to maximize profits and reduce costs. Retailers and CPG companies need data insights to build elasticity and scale into areas such as supply chain, inventory, logistics, and staffing.

Deep dive insights

Most of the business decisions for success need to understand the local context. Decisions are made at the regional or even individual store level about what type of inventory to stock based on the weather or local trends, how many salespeople are needed during holiday periods, or which suppliers to use based on pricing and logistics.

Customer reach

Marketing departments have a colossal task - to personalise the promotion and sales of their products and services for every potential buyer out there. E-commerce streams produce massive volumes of data on consumer behaviour that can help marketeers deliver what buyers want when they want it. But outdated systems and fragmented information silos can thwart retailers from leveraging this data to provide targeted marketing. Snowflake feels that this will support in building a 360-degree view of the customer that illuminates preferences and behavior, ensuring a great customer experience

The retail industry is a dynamic environment and today, the convenience of the shopping experience is just as important. That convenience means having a seamless shopping experience that is personalised through multiple channels. Utilising cloud data technologies, this challenge can be mitigated by retailers running different systems for in-store, E-commerce and mobile business.