WIMTACH’s Workshop Series: The Retail Analytics session provides information on usages of data for growth and becoming competitive in the market

Most of us know that small and medium-sized retail businesses always face fierce competition from big players in the market and their local counterparts. It is essential for them to meet the customer’s evolving needs to be competitive in the market. In-depth customer understanding, optimized marketing strategies, operations, supply chain management, and more are crucial for the survival and growth of any retail business. In today’s world, these cannot be achieved without adopting digital technologies and analytics. Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled technology integration can be crucial for the retailers in faster or real-time decision making. The emergence and rapid growth of open source technology, computing capabilities, and other supporting technologies offer a lot for retailers to be competitive in the market. This topic was covered by Sreekumar Pillai, a CEDA Project Manager with WIMTACH, in the Retail Analytics using Python workshop hosted by Centennial College.

During the 9th of May workshop session, Sreekumar explained how businesses require attention to different metrics. “Focus on the factors that matter to your business,” he emphasized, adding that “every business is different.” Therefore, determining the metrics your business should pay attention to is essential in improving your retail operation. Nevertheless, the measurement points for these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are generally the same for all companies. These include considerations like the Point of Sale (POS) for a business, entrance camera, restocking schedule, and more. However, new technologies like sensors enable retailers to track even more metrics and adapt quickly using computerized algorithms.

Participants paid thorough attention to the presentation, and one of the attendees asked, “What KPIs can we measure for a hypothetical business?” Sreekumar replied that there are many KPIs you can measure, starting from footfall metrics like visits to customer engagement. He added that because a retail business requires multiple KPIs to be measured simultaneously, it is more effective to utilize AI-enabled devices to measure the metrics and digital analytics using Python to interpret that data. The most exciting step in the workshop was when Sreekumar expanded on how participants could monetize their research. He stated that retail businesses look for professionals who can assist them with researching how their company operates and how they can improve. The first part of the workshop was concluded at this point. It contained the presentation, where Sreekumar discussed the specifics of the Canadian retail business and the digitization of retail.

Before starting the second part of the workshop – the hands-on session, Sreekumar provided both the python codes and sample data to the participants to quickly import the data and execute the python code. During the hands-on session, Sreekumar explained how to use freely accessible open-source Python tools to analyze retail data and get a retrospective understanding of the business.

After the explanation, participants would create different Python scripts in real life, which enabled him to assist and give advice to all participants simultaneously. To kick off the activity, Sreekumar launched a prepared code sequence. It enabled him to immediately measure and analyze inputs into the system that simulated different KPIs a company may be interested in monitoring. The activity continued with participants attempting to implement the same script. Many participants were able to succeed on the first try. The main objective of this collaborative activity was to make sure that everyone had a solid understanding of how they would implement digital technology to measure and interpret data.

The workshop continued with a presentation of a few real-life examples of Python used in retail analytics. This presentation allowed all participants to see the process thoroughly and gain knowledge of potential challenges businesses can face. Sreekumar later introduced the participants to Google Collaboratory, an online platform developed to execute Python code for professional and educational purposes. He presented how it can be used with Python and how the participants could use the tool outside of the workshop to practice their Python and retail analytics knowledge.

At the end of the workshop, Sreekumar talked about some freely accessible data sources, including those from the open data initiative that would be integrated into the internal data to generate more meaningful insights that support the business. Closing the workshop, all the participants thanked Sreekumar Pillai for his expertise and extensive explanation of Retail Analytics using Python. “If you have any questions, please join any Monday, and I will be here to help,” he concluded.

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