High-Quality Data: A Retailer’s Best Gift This Holiday Season

’Tis the season for holiday shopping! 

With the holiday rush in full swing, having accurate, trustworthy customer data is more important than ever. From decking the halls with the right promotions and anticipating what’s on shoppers’ wish lists to keeping the shelves stocked and delivering the magical holiday experiences customers expect, retailers need their data to be ready for the holiday hustle and bustle.

But too often, outdated, traditional master data management (MDM) solutions act like the Grinch, stealing holiday joy and preventing retailers from accessing the clean, trustworthy data they need to identify high-value customers, implement supplier sourcing strategies, resolve duplicate records across systems and touchpoints, and comply with global regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

To survive the frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday—and exceed their holiday sales targets—retailers need high-quality 360-degree views of customer and supplier data. And the best way for retailers to get that data is by embracing AI-native MDM. 

AI-native MDM combines AI’s efficiency and scalability with business context and human expertise, providing retailers with the advanced capabilities needed to deliver the best version of their customer and supplier data. Using an AI-native MDM solution like Tamr, retailers can uncover insights about their customers’ shopping preferences and behaviors across channels, streamline operations during the holidays (and beyond!), and deliver personalized ecommerce experiences that boost holiday sales.

As retail data teams make their lists (and check them twice!), AI-native MDM is sure to top their wish list. But there are a few additional capabilities they are hoping to unwrap this holiday season.

• Data mastering at scale: Retailers need to act fast, which is why they want an AI-native MDM solution that allows them to conduct data cleansing at scale through the ability to clean, match, enrich, and master golden records in real time. 
• Entity resolution: The ability to match, link, and de-duplicate customer records across disparate systems is a critical step in delivering the 360-degree customer views retailers need to understand shopper behaviors, preferences, purchase history, and interactions—both in-store and online. Further, with holistic views of suppliers, retailers can optimize their sourcing strategies and minimize supply chain risk, ensuring that their shelves are stocked with the season’s most sought-after gifts. 
• Real-time APIs: Duplicate data weighs down retailers, preventing them from delivering the types of experiences their customers expect. Tamr RealTime allows retailers to search before creating a new record so they can prevent duplicate shoppers from entering their system, ensuring operational system integrity. 
• Seamless integration: When CRMs, MAPs, and CDPs work together seamlessly, retailers can deliver timely, seasonal sales and marketing campaigns using the most up-to-date customer and supplier golden records in real time. 
• Flexible data unification: Having the flexibility to merge and unmerge records is critical for retailers, especially when it comes to identifying and maintaining golden records for their highest-value customers and key suppliers. 
• Record history: For compliance and accountability purposes, retailers need to understand why their MDM solution merged certain records. Because without this record history, they lack the transparency and explainability needed to confidently use their customer and supplier data to drive better, more confident decision-making. 

To remain merry and bright during the holiday madness, retailers need more than clean data. They need holistic, 360-degree views of their customers and suppliers that give them the insight needed to deliver perfectly timed holiday offers, ensure their shelves and warehouses remain stocked with the most in-demand gifts, and give their customers real-time, personalized experiences that fill them with cheer.