Book excerpt: A non-technical guide to leveraging retail analytics for personal and competitive advantage Style & Statistics is a real-world guide to analytics in retail. Written specifically for the non-IT crowd, this book explains analytics in an approachable, understandable way, and provides examples of direct application to retail merchandise management, marketing, and operations. The discussion covers current industry trends and emerging-standard processes, and illustrates how analytics is providing new solutions to perennial retail problems. You'll learn how to leverage the benefits of analytics to boost your personal career, and how to interpret data in a way that's useful to the average end business user or shopper. Key concepts are detailed in easy-to-understand language, and numerous examples highlight the growing importance of understanding analytics in the retail environment. The power of analytics has become apparent across industries, but it's left an especially indelible mark on retail. It's a complex topic, but you don't need to be a data scientist to take advantage of the opportunities it brings. This book shows you what you need to know, and how to put analytics to work with retail-specific applications. Learn how analytics can help you be better at your job Dig deeper into the customer's needs, wants, and dreams Streamline merchandise management, pricing, marketing, and more Find solutions for inefficiencies and inaccuracies As the retail customer evolves, so must the retail industry. The retail landscape not only includes in-store but also website, mobile site, mobile apps, and social media. With more and more competition emerging on all sides, retailers need to use every tool at their disposal to create value and gain a competitive advantage. Analytics offers a number of ways to make your company stand out, whether it's through improved operations, customer experience, or any of the other myriad factors that build a great place to shop. Style & Statistics provides an analytics primer with a practical bent, specifically for the retail industry.