Business Case Study: Target Retail Corporation

The question of utilizing research to solve problems has the ability to cause problems. Target Retail Corporation received an eye opening situation caused by their data mining research and customer analytics used to energize customers. In 2012, a father journeyed to his local Target store outside Minneapolis, wanting to talk to the manager over a maternity specific mailer that his high school daughter received. The report states that he asked the manager, “Are you encouraging her to get pregnant?” The fact is she was pregnant. (Duhigg 2012). How did they know? At the time and still to this day, Target is known for their excellent research process to stay focused on customers and the ability to judge significant events based off of buying habits.

Data mining is the computer-assisted process that digs through and analyzes massive sets of data, and then extracts the meaning of the figures. Data mining has empowered companies to find new opportunities for growth, decisions and the ability to identify customers, trends and purchasing decisions (Rygielski, Wang, and Yen 2002). The data mining results allows companies to save customers prior to departure to a competitor. Second indicator is that the Target’s company strategy includes the phrase “predictive analytics”, which is defined as “Predictive analytics is the branch of the advanced analytics which is used to make predictions about unknown future events. Predictive analytics uses many techniques from data mining, statistics, modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to analyze current data to make predictions about future.” (http://www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com). Target utilizes three primary sets of guest expectations, understanding their needs, deliver relevant messages and offers and contact guest with the right vehicle (Pole 2010). Target purchases the demographics, spending habits and neighborhood data just to start the process of towards those three sets of guest

This research focuses on data or information that was collected by other people and is available for either free or paid use for others. Target heavily uses the process of secondary research, as previously mentioned data mining thru different big data warehouses to find the pieces of information that allows Target to impact their customer base with mailers, offers and discounts to keep people spending their money is a pivotal role in the marketing strategy for Target. Primary research is a kind of market research which is done by the business or company itself with the objective of gathering information that can be used to improve the products, services, and functions. Primary market research is also known as field research since it is research done from scratch, without using any information that is already made available through other sources. We have stated that Target utilizes large quantities of secondary research, however Target is growing their primary research methods with their Red Credit Card and additional buying/spending habits that are completely internal to Target