It’s getting harder for retailers to identify how their competitors are marketing, what they are promoting and how they are pricing to different customer segments in the world of social media and digital technology.

Tech London Advocates Retail Tech Group explored these challenges and possible solutions at a recent evening event sponsored by Propeller and held at Summit Media’s London office. After networking (accompanied by refreshments), the gathering listened to case studies from two relevant start-ups and then an expert panel.

The audience heard from Alon Leibovich, CEO and co-founder of BrandTotal, and Callum Bramley, European Representative for Streamoid. They took part in the panel and were joined by Martin Corcoran, Head of Insight Consulting at Summit Media, and Sam Sudlow, Director of Global Sales Operations at Edge By Ascential. Eugene Fisher, Retail Tech Group lead, moderated.

Summing up, Martin advised any retailer looking at an analytics project “be clear what constitutes a successful trial – what will take the trial to a full roll-out.” Alon added that it was essential any data was fed into existing organisational processes to make it worthwhile rather than a business having to totally realign its processes.

Sam concluded: “Retailers need to see an analytics partner as an extension of the team and share as much as they can with them but also measure the partner performance and expect return on investment from them.”