Satisfying the customers mean retailers needs to be more accurate on the business context, needs more granularity in terms of data and insights, and the ability to respond closer to or in real time. This is where big data technologies provide practical solutions that deliver performance and economies at scale. Understanding customer behaviour and its impact on shopping decisions is a relatively underutilized science, therefore only a combination of big data, machine learning and predictive & prescriptive analytics can tap into the real potential of how organizations understand and respond effectively to customer needs today. Read more at: http://www.computerworld.in/interview/big-data-machine-learning-and-analytics-can-help-us-understand-customer-needs-seema-agarwal-manthan