Customer centricity is a trending topic for many industries. Market analysts view this as being critical to ensuring business survival and not just an approach to achieve some competitive advantage. But what is true customer centricity and what makes one business more customer-centric than another? The answer to this hinges on the extent to which a retailer has aligned its business model and operations to the wants and needs of the consumer.

Retail businesses are desperate to realise greater value and insight from data. More data is available through significant system investments, such as in ERP, system upgrades and network integration, however digital value derived from these systems is often limited. The move to being a more agile, digitally enabled enterprise can create challenges of a different nature, where visibility is actually reduced and functions are disconnected with limited interpretation of events.