Blog: What Digital Big Data Miners Miss in the Current Retail Environment

This was the first year that Money20/20 came to Singapore, and we were pleasantly surprised by the interactions we had, both with customers and with competitors. Competitiveness, in many cases, is giving way to collaboration and mindshare, and this appetite for a more open, more interconnected future was certainly on display throughout the conference.

We often talk about how Diebold Nixdorf is driving toward a connected commerce vision of the future, and we fully appreciate that it will require open APIs, flexible hardware and software, and a willingness to engage in new ways across the industry. Representatives from Google spent some time at our booth, discussing how we could collaborate on online and offline shopping, which was very encouraging. Retail will look very different in the very near future, and it’s critical that the leaders in our industry have these important conversations.

A big trend throughout the show was the many digital-based companies touting their Big Data capabilities pertaining to cashless transactions. Cashless options are certainly proliferating, from emerging cryptocurrencies to card-based transactions, mobile transactions, NFC, etc., and it’s important to be able to aggregate and evaluate the data on consumers who use these cashless options. But even in Asia Pacific, where digitalization is making big strides, cash transactions are still the norm. I estimate that up to 70% of the transactions conducted in major metropolitan areas may be cashless, but outside of APAC’s biggest cities, that rate is 50% or less.

So when we’re talking about mining for consumer data, those companies that only monitor cashless transactions are at a serious disadvantage, and that’s where Diebold Nixdorf is really a differentiator. We spent quite a bit of time at the show talking about Diebold Nixdorf AllConnect℠ Services, which sits at the intersection of physical and digital channels and enables us to support our clients in store transformation initiatives based on mining ALL the consumer data available, whether cash-based or cashless.

If you missed us at the show, make sure to catch up with us at the Retail Business Technology Expo coming up in London in May, or follow us on Twitter and YouTube to see our latest retail demos and learn more about how we’re working with our clients to drive the future of connected commerce.