FTI Consulting has published the results of its 2016 Retail Executive Survey.
100 C-suite executives were asked to rank 15 strategic priorities that they deemed to be “essential” or “high priority”. While big data was 14th on this list, it’s important to remember that all were considered to be at least “high priority”.
The story looks different when the executives were asked about their capability to execute these initiatives. The one that they are currently least able to execute is “big data”.
According to the survey, investment is aligned with strategic priority—even when there’s a capability surplus. It makes little sense to keep spending more on areas where you are over-qualified at the expense of key initiatives where capability is lacking.
If retailers don’t start investing more aggressively to address this shortfall Amazon will continue to eat their lunch.
