A Practical Implementation of Big Data in Retail

     So far, I have seen several examples where big data can be used as well as how it can be analyzed to help various businesses.  These are important aspects of big data, but I recently came across a real world concrete example of how to implement a big data system.  The article, “How to Implement a Big Data System” by Jean-Pierre Dijcks, lays out the infrastructure of something the author took from a keynote use case called Smartmall.  While I do not pretend to completely understand the inner workings of their business model, the many illustrations contribute to a high level understanding of the process.  

High Level Smartmall Infrastructure

According to the author, the main goals of Smartmall are:

·  Increase store traffic within the mall.

·  Increase revenue per visit and per transaction.

·  Reduce the non-buy percentage.

     The vehicle that drives this process is the customer smartphone.  Smartphones incorporate GPS technology that, when tapped into, can be used to locate individual customers.  When coupled with what the author calls “loyalty cards” (which track information such as buying habits, coupon usage, etc.), a customer profile can be indexed.  This index is referenced whenever the customer, and their smartphone, enter or get near the store.  While this is not completely anonymous, it is much less invasive than many social media sites.  The data collected from this system, which utilizes map reduce algorithms, can be used to more accurately meet customer needs or mail out coupons to specific customers for items tailored specifically for them.  If done over an entire mall, store locations may better be paired based on customer habits.  An example would be that customers who come around meal time wish to shop near the food court.  While that is only an intuitive idea, in-depth data analysis usually sheds light on less intuitive trends, as well as exposes common misconceptions.

High Level plus Batching

    This basic idea of using existing cell phone technology to drive a business model looks like a great idea on paper.  However, I cannot claim the entrepreneurial or technical expertise to significantly evaluate it.  Instead, the associated diagrams, which are mostly high level, seem to make more sense than anything I have read or can write here. Of course, the entire system is self promoting in the sense that it uses the Oracle Big Data Appliance (the article appears in the Oracle Technology Network website).  Further research into Oracle's competitors would be advisable to find the best possible company to contract for specific retailers.  An understanding of their software techniques may also allow for in-house analysis of the data.  Nevertheless, this does provide a good, concrete, example of how to set up a big data network with respect to the retail industry.

Using Map Reduce to Tailor Offers to Customers

Source and Images

 
"How to Implement a Big Data System." Oracle Technology Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2013.