The best business decisions are backed by insightful data.
In the retail industry, studying the way people behave can improve the customer experience. Trends like consumer habits, visitation, store performance, sales metrics, and more, can change the way companies view retail.
As we move into 2022, more Australian companies are harnessing the power of retail location data to drive revenue growth and improve efficiencies. According to Gartner, spending on technology products and services in Australia is projected to exceed $109 billion in 2022, an increase of 6.5% from just last year.
As it stands, the retail analytics market continues to grow and is expected to expand at a rate of 18% up to 2025. By then, it will be valued at $9.5 billion.
This is why companies are increasingly considering retail analytics as part of their competitive advantage.
From sales and marketing to planning and pricing, retail analytics is a critical enterprise asset and an essential competency for today’s modern retailers.
Defining Retail Analytics
Retail analytics refers to analytical data sets that can help a retailer manage a variety of operations like:
- Supply chain movement
- Consumer demand
- Inventory levels
- Procurement optimization
- Sales and marketing strategies
Retail analytics is at the heart of digital transformation in the retail industry. It provides detailed customer insight with the scope and need for improvement.
If you’re looking to equip your business with the latest retail technology, consider these popular Australian retail analytics companies to get started:
Esri Australia
Founded: 1977
Location: Brisbane QLD
Esri Australia is the nation's leading provider of GIS technology, location analytics capabilities, and geospatial solutions.
For more than 50 years, ESRI has been supporting the pioneering solutions that transform businesses, governments, and communities. They provide location intelligence solutions based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology.
Top Features
- Powerful mapping and analytics for spatial reasoning
- Collaborate and share via maps, apps, and dashboard reports
- Find the best location, plan for smarter communities, and respond faster to issues
- Real-time GIS with location monitoring of any type of sensor or device
- Collect, crowdsource, store, access, and share data efficiently and securely
Geospatial Intelligence Pty Ltd
Founded: 2002
Location: Kingston
Geospatial Intelligence is at the forefront of GIS information and analytics. They strive to be the premium Australian company for innovative solutions to geospatial challenges.
Core capabilities and expertise mirror the value chain of geospatial data gathering and interpretation, including sensing and data capture, analytics, domain application, training, and support.
Top Features
- Geospatial analysis, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and effective user interfaces
- Base maps, elevation maps, and reference layers provide spatial context for all types of data
- Enhancing domain awareness and knowledge to support informed decision making
- Ongoing professional support and training for customers
- Custom algorithms to collect, process and analyze open source intelligence to understand context, relationships, patterns and trends
DSpark
Founded: 2014
Location: New South Wales (NSW)
DSpark is a leader in processing large geospatial temporal mobility data to deliver intelligence on people and places using the highest data privacy standards. Understanding how people move, where they go, and what they do enables organizations to map their strategy around where people live, work, and play.
DSpark is passionate about helping companies transform their businesses through the insights derived from mobility data. They use location intelligence and data science to solve unique business problems.
Top Features
- Custom mobility reports built by data experts to better understand people movement
- Processing large geospatial, temporal mobility data to deliver intelligence on people and places
- Find insights from daily footfall to trends across days, weeks, and months
- Mobility Genome framework for powerful analytics algorithms that provides holistic insights
- Receive regular snapshots into mobility patterns of visitors
Geoscape Australia
Founded: 2001
Location: Griffith
Geoscape Australia is a provider of national location data, backed by the governments of Australia. They deliver spatial data to enable economic, social, and environmental outcomes across the economy.
The Geoscape Australia system describes the addresses, land, buildings, and transport networks across Australia’s 7.6 million square kilometers. They continuously source, process, and deliver data to various endpoints, including APIs and a self-service portal.
Top Features
- Create revenue streams, increase productivity, and reduce costs using data solutions
- Visualize and download building outlines, heights, and address data for input in minutes
- Geoscape address verification APIs to validate the addresses
- Different subscriptions to cover your project size, timeline, and budget
- Tiered API plan to access data and daily updated address services
NGIS
Founded: 1993
Location: Brisbane
NGIS is passionate about the power of geospatial technology, from a customized Google Map to an advanced Earth Observations project with the ability to enact positive change, on a global scale.
Thought leadership and problem-solving is at the heart of what they do, which is to advise clients on spatial technology, consult in GIS services, build fit for purpose solutions, train clients technically, and partner with the industry's best technology providers such as; Google, Planet, Skyline Digital Twin and more.
Top Features
- Active member of Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) and Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA)
- Fit for purpose solutions that use leading edge location technology to deliver results
- Monitoring solutions to pinpoint change and activities across large areas
- Self service platforms to highlight patterns and drive operational awareness
- Capture, store, analyze, manage, and present geographic data in the form of dynamic digital maps
Location IQ
Founded: 2009
Location: Sydney
Location IQ provides insightful, tactical, and targeted direction regarding location and property-based decisions. Their research identifies key areas of demand for different types of goods/services across a range of sectors. In doing so, they help find the most strategically and financially beneficial location for any business.
The Location IQ platform provides detailed market assessments across the entire property sector, including advice on retail, commercial, mixed-use, and residential assets.
Top Features
- Network analysis with assessment on market potential and leasing documents
- Web mapping tool to view, analyze, and interpret property, economics, and demographics data
- Interactive socio-demographic profiling capabilities across Australia and New Zealand
- Economic consultancy specializing in location, property, mapping and data solutions
- Drivetime and radial catchment creation analysis for automation of mapping processes
Walker Geospatial
Founded: 2013
Location: Victoria
Walker Geospatial & Data Analysis specializes in the collection, validation, analysis, reporting, and presentation of geospatial data. They have the most up-to-date Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capabilities to visualize and communicate location-based information and business objectives.
Walker Geospatial has extensive experience with data relating to the environment, land use, property, employment, asset information, utilities, demographics, and livability. Their services supplement a variety of applications within many industry sectors.
Top Features
- Demographic, population, and renewable energies feasibility analysis
- Interactive tourism and economic development mapping
- Land, waste, and natural resource management
- GIS databases and varying (proprietary) file formats with relational database management
- Cartographic map production and animated mapping (for temporal change visualization)
Advanced Mobility Analytics
Founded: 2018
Location: Brisbane City
Advanced Mobile Analytics Group (AMAG) develops GIS software for road safety and smart cities. This enables any computer scientist with AI programming skills to track when and where road users are; and even identify ‘near-misses’.
AMAG has built a digital platform designed to support smart city goals and objectives. SMART Digital Platform is an A.I.-powered transportation safety software that enables governments to monitor, manage, and mitigate risks associated with mobility.
Top Features
- Safe Mobility Alert Real Time (SMART) Digital Platform to support Vision Zero and Safe Systems approaches globally
- Proactively identify and diagnose safety issues using AI and advanced econometrics
- Continuous safety and ops dashboard with real-time risk optimization
- Adaptive traffic signal plug-in with empirical basis and surrogate measures
- Video analytics, making use of latest AI, classifies all road users in space and time
The Future of Retail Analytics in Australia
In the retail analytics space, there are many factors driving growth. More retailers are adopting location-based hardware, paired with cloud-based software. This includes employing devices like RFID, in-store wi-fi, and IoT systems. Since all of these technologies work hand-in-hand, retailers have access to more mobility data than ever before.
For the future of retail analytics, expect these two trends:
Predictive Analytics
Data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning are being used to predict what will happen next. Retailers can be more confident about making decisions with data-driven strategies.
Prescriptive Analytics
A.I. takes location data to the next level with solutions that actually predict what happens next and prescribe the best course of action. For example, a software program that recommends items to discount based on real-time sales and inventory data.
Going forward, it makes sense that the best retail analytics companies will have tailored offerings and personalized solutions for the greatest data efficiency.
Modern retailers should seek a custom analytics solution that best suits their business needs. As the location intelligence market continues to grow, Australia has promising opportunities on the horizon.
