Digital Boardroom Recordings Available: “How can retailers implement ‘Real-time Data Centricity’ and reap the benefits?”

VAD Technologies in collaboration with Exasol organized a “Digital Boardroom” for Senior Technology Leaders from leading Retail Organizations in the MEA Region to discuss how to develop a real time approach to data & analytics in a post-pandemic world on March 22nd, 2021.

The pandemic has created increased demands on the retail landscape. As an industry on the front line, retailers and e-commerce businesses are under enormous pressure to accelerate decision-making processes and as such are increasingly collaborating with, and relying on, data professionals to support them with real-time insights. Timely insights effectively inform a host of key decisions, from anticipating changes in product demand and supply chain operations, to analyzing the changing habits of Consumers. These insights were designed to make retailers and e-commerce businesses more responsive to customer needs as well as help secure their long-term loyalty.
 
The Digital Boardroom hosted a selected number of Senior Technology Leaders and on invitation only. CDO’s, Heads, Directors, and VP’s of Data and Analytics from leading retail organizations across the MEA region got insights into best practices on the function of data and analytics for the future of retail.
 
Attendees had the benefits to:

• Receive firsthand insight from the former Director of Reporting and Analytics Platforms at Adidas, Graham Sharpe
• Understand how real-time data can be used to innovate your organization
• Discuss why it makes sense to invest in real time analytics, the opportunities for customer acquisition, customer retention and loyalty, dynamic pricing and inventory management

 
In case you were not among those joining the Event, please find here the link to the recordings:
https://youtu.be/T2EqwpfTYX8
 
Key takeaways from the event were:
Data Centricity - Moving to data-centric processes can often be viewed as threatening, let’s face it, employees may not see how they fit in to the new way of doing things. So, it’s important to first focus on identifying smaller areas where you can begin to move to data-centric processes and clearly measure the ROI.  That way everyone in the organization understands exactly why this change is being made and how both they and the company benefits.
 
Data Driven Culture - Globally, the shift to digital business also requires a fundamental shift in culture and education.  One of the most challenging parts of this journey can be changing your corporate culture to one that values data-driven decisions.  There’s no easy way to do this, it’ll take time, focus, and relationships.  It relies on evangelizing the personal and professional benefits of becoming data-driven by building tools, recognizing individual and team successes, and, most crucially, creating an environment that values and acts on data.
 
About Graham Sharpe
Director of Strategic Solutions, Exasol
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gasharpe/
Graham has deep experience in the data business ranging from BI front ends, through all styles of data warehousing to advanced analytics and operational machine learning. As Director of Digital Analytics Platforms at Adidas, he was instrumental in building advanced platforms and solutions for eCOM topics such as large-scale customer analytics, inseason forecasting, market pricing intelligence and dynamic pricing. Working at Adidas for the last 10+ years with Exasol as the core analytics database provided Graham the knowledge and experience to take on his new role at Exasol as Director Strategic Solutions, allowing Exasol customers to gain the benefit of his experience driving the advancement of BI and advanced analytics at a global brand.
 
About Exasol
Exasol is passionate about helping companies run their businesses smarter and drive profit by analyzing data and information at unprecedented speeds. The company develops the world’s fastest in-memory database for analytics and data warehousing and offers first-class know-how and expertise in data insight and analytics. The in-memory analytic database is the first to combine in-memory, columnar compression and massively parallel processing, and is proven to be the world’s fastest topping the list in the TPC-H Benchmark tests for performance. Exasol is committed to helping organizations with their data challenges by offering them an analytic database that performs, has an open framework and is easy to use. The solution is designed to scale from commodity hardware to Hadoop and co-exists with any infrastructure, whether on-premises or in the cloud. The company also offers an easy migration path, an easy installation process and a solution that is future-proof. The solution is world-class, backed up by people with a passion for data and analytics, and allows organizations to focus on their business, not their database infrastructure. Companies that depend on Exasol to analyze their data in real-time include Adidas Group, GfK, IMS Health, King, Olympus, myThings, Sony Music and Xing.
To learn more about Exasol please visit: www.exasol.co