The Oracle Retail Week Awards 2012 were last night. In case you missed the action the introduction video for the Oracle Retail Week Awards 2012 is below, featuring interviews with UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Acting Editor of Retail Week George MacDonald, the judges for the awards and key figureheads in British retail.

Check back on the blog in the next couple of days for more videos, interviews and insights from the awards.

Oracle Retail and "Your Experience Platform"

Technology is the key to providing that differentiated retail experience. More specifically, it is what we at Oracle call ‘the experience platform’ - a set of integrated, cross-channel business technology solutions, selected and operated by a retail business and IT team, and deployed in accordance with that organisation’s individual strategy and processes.

This business systems architecture simultaneously:

• Connects customer interactions across all channels and touchpoints, and every customer lifecycle phase to provide a differentiated customer experience that meets consumers’ needs and expectations.
• Delivers actionable insight that enables smarter decisions in planning, forecasting, merchandising, supply chain management, marketing, etc;
• Optimises operations to align every aspect of the retail business to gain efficiencies and economies, to align KPIs to eliminate strategic conflicts, and at the same time be working in support of customer priorities.

Working in unison, these three goals not only help retailers to successfully navigate the challenges of today (identified in the previous session on this stage) but also to focus on delivering that personalised customer experience based on differentiated products, pricing, services and interactions that will help you to gain market share and grow sales.