Summary
Retail CIOs must lead the way by capitalizing on the opportunities enabled by machine learning algorithms. Competitive advantage in digital business will be fueled by the various ways in which algorithms are being deployed and are creating new opportunities, now and in the future. Gartner’s Cool Vendors are a great start.

Key Findings

• Low-cost, available computing power, together with the abundance of complex unstructured data, is fueling the rise of artificial intelligence solutions that can go beyond the traditional big data analytics.
• Fresh and relevant content are required for successful personalization strategies.
• Customizable, on-demand learning management will be a necessity to engage and develop an increasingly mobile retail workforce.
• The rise of automated, self-service machine learning applications will provide retailers new and scalable ways to leverage their massive amounts of information, thus disintermediating traditional data brokerage services.

Recommendations
Retail CIOs:

• To ensure that artificial intelligence solutions can deliver benefits in a multichannel context, invest in multichannel master data management solutions, making sure you can provide relevant fulfillment options to service customer orders in a timely manner.
• Seek personalization technology that uses deep learning and active response to ensure customers receive a proper experience.
• Evaluate training solutions designed for customization and advanced analytics capability to improve employee engagement and service across the organization, versus simply moving learning management to mobile devices.
• Create several business scenarios in which your organization might use advanced machine learning to achieve its future-state business outcomes.

To read more about our cool vendors Gartner clients can click this link:

Cool Vendors in Retail, 2016