Why Bad Data Brings On Bad Omnichannel

According to a survey released Thursday by Periscope, retailers are struggling to actually integrate omnichannel operations as an organic part of their business.  Periscope is a unit of management consultancy McKinsey Solutions.

On top of that – only about 1 in 5 retailers surveyed at April’s Retail World Congress reported that they are more confident in their omnichannel abilities than they were a year ago, while 45 percent said their development was not moving quickly enough to really be relevant to their costumers. Only 6 percent ranked their omnichannel and capabilities as excellent, while a full 36 percent (over a third) noted that so far omnicommerce wasn’t even clearing proof on concept.

The more alarming problem, noted the Periscope report, is that despite all the efforts and praise, 78 percent of retail executives report there being no unified brand experience across their channels, despite the fact that over two-thirds rank such an experience as critical to future growth.

The background villain in the report is data – 67 note they lack it about customer across channels, while 48 percent note that data silos make it impossible for everyone relevant to see everything. Almost half (45 percent) noted poor quality, and a different 45 percent noted they were unable to identify the same customer across multiple trips on multiple channels.

“Consumers are desperate for omnichannel experiences, they work across channels, why can’t their favorite retailers? In their minds it is a simple as that, and it leads to frustration, and diminishes brand loyalty,” Channie Mize, Periscope’s general manager for retail, said in a press release. “The biggest challenge for retailers is the organizational change that needs to take place: The removal of organizational siloes, creation of new processes, and the forming teams that work across, rather than within, channels. These take careful planning and execution, but cannot be ignored, because without them any retailer is doomed to fail.”

The results of the Periscope study confirm the results of a white paper release earlier this week by PayPal about the development of mobile commerce in store, which noted a similar frustration among retailers at the apparent potential power of cross-channel and mobile enable commerce, and the inability to find an easy solution to make those channels all work as one.