The goal is to retain customers for life. By viewing data from multiple channels, companies can create unified pricing and promotions, better allocate merchandise between channels, and improve inventory and fulfillment operations. Its vision is to create synergies among its physical stores and online ventures such as Hallmark Flowers. One of Hallmark's first steps will be to build a customer database, running on Oracle software, that supports its retail and online channels. But with some of the new tools available and some of the new opportunities we have to leverage the Internet, we now have the ability to use the data at an enterprise level.
Data warehouses are a popular first step.
Executives at Borders Group Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich., can't tell whether customers who buy books in the company's retail stores are the same who buy from its Web site. But they should be able to get the answer from a 1-terabyte data warehouse that's being built. Such projects aren't cheap. Other companies find it difficult to move quickly because of the financial and human resources required. The online pharmacy is now integrated with CVS's procurement, inventory, and order-fulfillment systems.