Leading retailers have an ambitious vision for what data and connectivity can do in the physical shopping space, and brick-and-mortar retail is already rapidly transforming the shopping experience with technologies such as IoT, VR, AI and cloud computing.

Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we’ve discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week we explore the rising scope of location intelligence in improving the overall customer experience.

Power BI (Business Intelligence) is a business analytics platform/service provided by Microsoft. This service aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence, enabling the end-user to create individualized reports and dashboards independently. Especially for retail businesses, Power BI helps them meet the dynamic customer demands in advance with actionable insights. Microsoft Power BI service is based on cloud service, which also offers a desktop-based interface.

In an expanded and commercial industry space new and innovative opportunities are presented to retail organizations from several novel sources of data, log files, and from transaction information to sensor data to achieve unmatched value and combative advantage in their respective fields. In order to attain customer satisfaction and to flourish their business, people across the organization must be empowered, so that swift and accurate decisions can be attained.

Digital transformation is driving industries to evolve to new dimensions. Mixed reality is one of the key components in the digital reality trends that business sectors a rapidly capitalizing into. It is reshaping almost every conventional way that retailers do business. Many industrial trajectories are responding immediately to give more experiential customer experience with reality technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality.

“Engineering” and “creativity” aren’t often considered synonymous. However, in today’s world, where the online experience is at the forefront of virtually all business transactions and experiences, the creative engineer is finally getting the recognition they deserve. These individuals are quite literally building the virtual world we live in.

In January, PagerDuty brought together retail executives in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) who wanted to better understand how technology can build an exciting future for retail in the wake of the pandemic.

From store shutdown to temporary closure and limited occupancy for non-essential retail businesses, 2020 was filled with many disappointments. America’s stores were in rough shape even before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has significantly compounded the challenging retail landscape, leaving behind businesses that could not adapt to the abrupt change in the operating environment.

OpsRamp customer BJ’s Wholesale Club is enhancing and reshaping how its customers buy essential goods during a year like no other. When it comes to consumer goods, the year 2020 has been all about essentials. Consumers have stocked up on groceries and household supplies such as toilet paper and cleaning products, fitness wear for working comfortably from home and of course electronics, to stay connected.

Black Friday is one of the biggest days of the year for online consumers and retailers alike. This year, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is reshaping Black Friday shopping — and digital consumers and retailers must plan accordingly. The coronavirus pandemic will likely cause Black Friday shopping to decline this year. As such, many digital retailers are launching early Black Friday sales, so they can capture consumers’ interest ahead of the competition.