Data-driven market effectiveness: The role of a sustained customer analytics capability in business operations

Abstract

This study's objective is to investigate how a business can achieve data-driven market effectiveness through the sustained application of a customer analytics capability to its operations. Despite the abundance of literature on retail technology management, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of a customer analytics capability in promoting sustainable market performance within retail business operations remains scarce. This study presents a model of a sustained customer analytics capability in the context of competitive, data-rich retail business processes, drawing on grounded market orientation capability theory. The study employs a taxonomy of explanation and prediction from an epistemological perspective, employing predominantly positivist methods, where data analysis validates the conceptual customer analytics capability and its sustained critical outcomes. In addition, the study discusses the significant contributions of its findings regarding the acceleration of retail business operational performance in a big data environment and also provides future research directions to resolve any limitations of the current study.