Direct customer relationships are a privilege, but they also generate massive amounts of data. This wealth of information holds the potential to drive real frontline differentiation, if retailers have the right tools and approaches to make the most of this unique asset ‘Big Data’. In our experience of working with retailers across the globe, we have found Big Data to be getting a lot of interest, but most retailers struggle with some common challenges such as how to align big data with business decisions, how to identify new types of data and how to gather big data for improved decision making.