Details

  • Service: Tax, Mergers & Acquisitions, Advisory
  • Industry: High Growth Markets, Mid Market, Private Equity, Retail
  • Type: Survey report
  • Date: 8/17/2011

Retailers Pump Tech Investment to Fuel Growth, Customer Analytics; Turnaround Not Seen Soon 

Retail executives see high national unemployment and decreased consumer confidence as significant problems. They indicate that pricing pressures, lack of customer demand, and increasing input costs are significant barriers to growth over the next year.

Retail executives also identified the costs of inputs and discounting as the greatest threats to profit margins and note that they expect the economy to improve only moderately next year. They do not anticipate a complete economic recovery until 2013 – 2014 or later.
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Among the survey’s key findings:

  • More than half of the executives surveyed expect moderate improvement in economic conditions over the next year, but 62 percent believe a full economic recovery will not occur until the end of 2013 or later.
  • Retail executives see IT as a high priority investment area, with 47 percent of respondents expecting to increase IT spending over the next year.
  • Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents view data analytics as a core component of strategy and planning.
  • 47 percent of respondents say their company’s current revenue is somewhat higher than last year, while 68 percent anticipate a moderate revenue increase one year from now.
  • More than 50 percent of sector executives plan to add personnel in the next year, but nearly one quarter of respondents predict that their company’s U.S. headcount will never return to pre-recession levels.
  • A significant majority of survey respondents (72 percent) acknowledge that they have a great deal of cash on their balance sheets, and 44 percent say they’re already investing that money or will before the year closes.