The retail sector was one of the first sectors to make significant investments in collecting and integrating customer data in data warehouses. Retailers have generally earned a significant return on their IT system investments by using business intelligence systems to analyze the data to improve business performance with a focus on reducing operating costs, without sacrificing the customer experience. The levers that a retailer can use to optimize performance include: price, promotion, markdown, assortment, space, allocation and replenishment. Data-driven decision making is key to successful decisions regarding all of these levers.
