Microsoft Cloud for Retail + Empower Analytics

There are a host of opportunities to deliver a better shopper experience equating to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. In essence, it comes down to people and data. Retailers who invest in both continue to reap the benefits as they hone their data analytics and front-line worker capabilities year on year.

This end-to-end experience, however, requires far greater visibility into customer needs and behaviors than organizations have had in the past. Enter Microsoft Cloud for Retail. Microsoft’s newest industry cloud offering accelerates business growth with solutions that integrate with retailers’ existing systems. It’s also infused with process flows and core business logic that helps customers address pain points and is pre-configured for retail industry needs.

It’s no surprise that Microsoft Cloud for Retail comes out of the gate with a major focus on data analytics providing tools to unify disparate data sources across the end-to-end shopper journey, so retailers can maximize the value of their data, based on a single, holistic view of the consumer.

This should be welcome news to many in the retail industry. With the amount of data generated every hour in retail—it’s effectively the demand signal for the world. Yet, in the past, customer touchpoints haven’t been linked to each other, and most retailers are only set up to leverage a fraction of the data that’s available.

Hitachi Solutions is a premier launch partner working with Microsoft on Cloud for Retail. Thus, we have the know-how to bring your solution to life by removing data silos, reducing data duplication, and facilitating AI and machine learning-infused analytics to deliver more robust business intelligence as well as greater predictive accuracy.

Here’s where Hitachi Solutions’ Empower: Analytics as a Service offering is the perfect piece to elevate the retail cloud puzzle.

Empower has deep technical interoperability with Microsoft Cloud for Retail. This integration enables data congruence across the Retail Cloud, ensuring that customers can realize greater analytics confidence across their own data, the data procured across Microsoft, and the transformed unstructured and semi-structured data generated by the Azure-based Empower solution.

As a service, it is fully managed and subscription-based providing tools you need to ensure that your data lake doesn’t become a data swamp. Couple that with Microsoft’s Cloud for Retail and your organization can realize a myriad of benefits including:

• Increased revenue through visibility to pricing/promotion and sales data
• Increased profitability through visibility into customer purchase history and ability to focus on high-value customers
• Reduced logistics /freight costs with visibility for optimal inventory stocking/fulfillment
• Ability to aggregate first-party data and third-party data to optimize reputation management and gain a deeper richer understanding of your customer
• Improved merchandise/brand performance with easy to use tools, simulations, and real-time data

As the industry continues to navigate digital transformation, there is an incredible opportunity at the intersection of retail and technology. No doubt, an integrated retail data strategy, and cutting-edge tools will play a critical role.

Start putting your data to its best possible use. Contact Hitachi Solutions today for more information Microsoft Cloud for Retail and Empower: Analytics as a Service.

The Who & What Behind the Blog

Deb Marotta, Vice President of Industry Strategy at Hitachi Solutions America, is a seasoned leader in the field of industry strategy and technology. Her broad-ranging expertise spans more than three decades, including a significant tenure as Global Dynamics AX Product Manager at Tectura Corporation. Deb's leadership roles at Hitachi Solutions America and prior experiences at Emtec underscore her commitment to driving innovative solutions and best practices across multiple industries. With her knowledge, strategic thinking, and industry insights, Deb offers in-depth, progressive content to this blog, dedicated to the ever-evolving landscape of industry technology solutions.