TCS Analytics Software Helps Retailers Tap Internet of Things to Serve Up Personalized Customer Experiences

Hong Kong, August 25, 2016: Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced new software that enables brick-and-mortar retailers to leverage insightful data from in-store sensors and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices to deepen relationships with customers through more personalized marketing strategies.

Available from TCS’ Digital Software & Solutions Group, ‘TCS Customer Intelligence & Insights for Retail’ helps established retailers compete more effectively for the loyalty of today’s connected and increasingly empowered and demanding consumers. It is designed to counter the bombardment of today’s consumers with random, irrelevant and untimely offers, which occur when retailers lack granular insights about individual customer preferences or can’t capitalize on real life situations, such as in-store shopping.

“The Internet of Things is further blurring the line between traditional and online retailing, forcing marketers to reconstruct the customer’s journey with their brands across both physical and virtual worlds,” said Seeta Hariharan, General Manager and Group Head, TCS Digital Software & Solutions. “Retailers are moving from hit-or-miss marketing to highly relevant, timely interactions delivered in the right context. Their goal is creating binding emotional connections at every touch point with consumers to withstand the lure of discounting.”

Retailers are increasingly using IoT technologies to boost customer loyalty through customized marketing campaigns and to close sales — when, where and however the customer chooses. According to the TCS Global Trend study on IoT, 50% of retailers are using IoT technologies to monitor customer data via mobile apps and 27.9% are using it to track data via sensors in physical locations such as stores.

For retailers to deliver the most appropriate offers or opportunities to consumers – at the right time and place – they require unique, data-driven representations of real customers instead of less accurate segment based marketing. The new TCS software accomplishes this using behavior based customer personas that are continuously informed and refined using proprietary machine learning technologies such as TCS’ Adaptive Analytics Engine (A2E) and statistical algorithms, as well as demographic, social media, psychographic, customer transaction and loyalty data. The A2E technology, which works across a variety of industry domains, improves the accuracy of highly personalized offers, promotions and other interactions designed to increase brand loyalty.

The new software enables retailers to build trusted consumer relationships over time by delivering valued, personalized experiences in the right context and driven by insights from a variety of real world and online data sources. For example, a running enthusiast who’s been reading reviews of fitness trackers on a retailer’s website and app enters a store and is immediately greeted by a salesperson who shows her a display of wearable devices. While examining them, she receives a smart phone alert offering her an opportunity to connect with a local community of runners who can demonstrate the products. After making a purchase, her relationship with the retailer continues with invitations to running events, opportunities for discounted race entry fees and targeted offers for running shoes, supplements, etc. 

“Consumers buy through multiple channels, but online shopping has made them expect all retailers to understand them better,” says Leslie Hand, VP, IDC Retail Insights. “This puts pressure on brick-and-mortar retailers to transform how they market to consumers across their converging physical and digital worlds. By 2018, retail laggards who haven’t transformed how they use data from the Internet of Things and other real world sources to engage with customers will be closing ten times more stores than their peers to stay in business. With its persona driven technology, TCS is on the right path to help retailers interact with customers across these two worlds in a very personalized fashion.”

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Data Officers (CDOs) have been pursuing personalized marketing strategies with a new generation of data scientists. However, delivering on their visions has proved challenging, expensive and time consuming – as long as two years. To address this need, ‘TCS Customer Intelligence & Insights for Retail’ allows brands to considerably speed up this process and orchestrate scripted customer journeys of connected, relevant and opportunistic interactions delivered to smartphones, tablets or PCs so consumers feel they’re receiving a valued service, rather than disconnected sales pitches.

Available now, TCS Customer Intelligence & Insights for Retail is a pre-integrated solution that fills the gap between systems integrators offering technology building blocks and platforms and the growing array of ad tech and marketing tech niche products. It can be deployed as soon as 30 days, allowing retailers to quickly reap the benefits of personalized marketing at a lower cost.

About TCS Digital Software & Solutions Group
Launched in 2014, TCS Digital Software & Solutions Group is a strategic growth business within TCS that helps customers undergo critical digital transformations with modular, scalable and fully integrated, industry-tailored licensed software and solutions. Industries served are Cities, Retail, Communications and Banking and Financial Services. These four markets have a particularly urgent need to adopt emerging technologies to enhance customer intelligence capabilities and rapidly shift product and service offerings to compete in highly competitive and customer-centric arenas. For more information, visit http://www.tcs.com/digital-software-solutions/pages/default.aspx or the Digital Software & Solutions Group page on Linked In.