Concerns about IT complexity and cost are at an end, at least that’s what Oracle hopes to achieve.

The company is aiming to put retail science and retail analytics solutions in the cloud as part of its on-going cloud drive.

Oracle Retail Science Cloud Services and its Retail Insight Cloud target helping retailers to gain deeper insights into their customers’ preference and buying patterns. The retail science cloud service will help to simplify IT infrastructure and create a more predictable total cost of ownership.

Included in the retail science services are advanced clustering which identifies unique patterns within data to create customer centric and targeted clusters. Retail assortment and space optimisation is another service which is aimed at helping to align a retailer’s assortment to meet demand.

Leslie Hand, VP, IDC Retail Insights, said: "Retailers are awash in data but really need helping making that data actionable.

"Unfortunately, the cost is high, including acquiring the technology, talent and infrastructure to implement the kinds of retail science and analytics solutions that can provide return on investment for data, space, and inventory.

"It has been difficult to make the business case to invest limited resources in such efforts — despite potentially enormous returns on the investment. This is where cloud solutions can have tremendous impact."