“The customer is always right” is an adage that rings truer than ever in the Information Age. Today’s consumers are armed with online product information — from comparative Amazon reviews to primers on a product’s backstory. It’s up to David Dorf, VP of Product Strategy at Infor, Inc., to make sure that retailers have equal footing when it comes to marketing to info-savvy consumers.

“There’s so much product data out there,” Dorf told David Vellante (@dvellante) and George Gilbert (@ggilbert41), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at Inforum 2016. “The problem is solving how to make that information actionable for the retailers,” he added.

Employees need to keep up with customer knowledge

In the Internet Age, it’s not uncommon for customers to enter a store with more information on a product than an employee has. “It’s not enough to have all of your reviews and ratings online,” Dorf said. “You need to make sure that your employees have access to that same information in the store itself.”

One solution Dorf suggested for keeping product information at employees’ fingertips is to equip them with tablets. “Retail is detail,” Dorf quipped. “Employees should have all this information in front of them. They should be able to make product comparisons with consumers in real time.”

As more and more product data becomes available online, Dorf said it’s important for retailers to find symmetry between brand and consumer information. “The consumer is in control,” Dorf said. “It’s all about how they want to shop. It’s incumbent on the brand to make that experience the way their customers want.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Inforum 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE