Introduction to Customer Analytics and Data-Led Omnichannel Commerce Minitrack

The continued development of e-commerce, social media, online information search and business intelligence have fundamentally changed the conducting of business in all fields and industries. Virtually all businesses are now facing an omnichannel world, in which presence and activity in a number of different channels determines business success. The rise of digital communications and data has changed many things in traditional industries as more and more industries are able to understand, track, serve and sell their offerings digitally. Passing customers smoothly from one channel to another is increasingly important, and many businesses that have excelled in the digital space are turning to more traditional channels to embrace the combination opportunities. Simultaneously new media and applications, e.g. cutting edge moving image social media applications, commoditized high-definition virtual reality and algorithm-based automated procurement systems, keep the scene lively. Combining the old and the new has become a competence and a sustainable source of competitive advantage. One of the primary sources of this competitive advantage is the ability to extract timely and relevant customer data for serving customers better. Customer analytics comes in various forms, but the cutting edge of such analytics is one that starts from practical and acute needs of the customer. Such customer analytics is not legacy database-led, but deals with customer interaction, engagement and service design, and is linked to protocols of how to react to, target, automate and optimize. A minitrack concentrating on these core developments of ecommerce and e-business is proposed for HICSS-50.