By Dr. Tony Hernandez and Marco Biasiotto

The Canadian retail system has undergone significant structural transformation over the last decade.  Corporate concentration, an influx of US-based retailers, the challenge of multi-channel retail and 'format' experimentation represent catalysts of retail change.  Faced with increasing competition and more discerning and demanding consumers, the pressures on retailers to make 'informed' decisions have risen considerably.

There exist a wide variety of decision support technologies and techniques to aid decision-makers in handling and analysing data, for example, GIS, sales regression models, cluster and factor segmentation analysis.  This research letter provides summary findings from a survey that focused on corporate retail planning activities, it provides a snap-shot of decision-making practice in major Canadian retail organizations.