If your catalog/multichannel business is to remain relevant in 2009 and beyond, it's going to have to become a customer-centric organization. So says a recent survey from DemandTec, a leading provider of on-demand optimization solutions for retailers and consumer products manufacturers, and Precima, an advanced analytics firm. The survey defined customer centricity as a strategy for which an organization uses shopper data to develop insight as a driver for decision making.
Of the 120 — 55 retailers and 65 consumer products manufacturers — respondents who completed the survey, 75 percent of the retailers and 58 percent of the manufacturers ranked consumer centricity as a top-three success factor for their businesses this year. Here are some more findings of the survey:
- 80 percent of retailers and 67 percent of manufacturers said they expect an increased focus on customer centricity in 2009;
- 43 percent of manufacturers said their ability to leverage consumer insights across the organization is better than satisfactory, while retailers are doing a better job at this, with 64 percent of respondents saying they were better than satisfactory;
- 43 percent of manufacturers and 37 percent of retailers listed the limited availability of team resources as their largest impediment to customer-centric success;
- 75 percent of the retailers who responded said they've appointed a senior customer-centricity role within their organizations, resulting in just 16 percent of them citing a lack of support and executive sponsorship as a barrier to becoming a customer-centric organization;
- 80 percent of “high performer” manufacturers use consumer insights more frequently for demand planning/forecasting compared to the average (49 percent);
- 80 percent of retail “high performers” use consumer insights more frequently in sales/merchandising compared to the average (60 percent); and
- 53 percent of “high performer” retailers are more likely to share data to strengthen trading partner relationships than the average retailer (24 percent).
For more information, go to www.demandtec.com or www.precima.com.
