Streaming data is transforming how retailers operate. Retail’s evolution from brick-and-mortar to omnichannel has provided organizations with better information about customer behavior while also increasing the expectations of consumers regarding their customer experience. Online and mobile applications have become the norm and shoppers now expect real-time information about inventory levels and prices along with personalized recommendations and offers. Streaming data provides operations managers at both the brand level and store level real-time visibility into the supply chain and it can help detect and prevent inventory shrinkage. It can also be used to tie together information from the legacy systems that are needed to make many of these capabilities possible, but without the significant investment that would be needed to rewrite these systems.
