I’ve always been a glass-half-full kind of person, someone who believes that good can come from adversity, no matter how bleak it may seem. This year has been no different. Though the world has faced unimaginable hardship, and people have been forced to take steps in directions they never thought they’d have to, there has been a lot of good to come out of an otherwise horrible year.

One of the best examples is how the world of retail has evolved. For one thing, so many people stepped up to support local businesses, buy from their favorite stores, and truly make a difference. Add to this a newfound appreciation and solidarity with local retailers—in all, the retail world became a far better place, reminding us that there are amazing products, foods, and more all in our own backyards.

But that’s not all. As the world shut down, retailers of all kinds found ways to remain open, implementing far more personalized service—all to show appreciation to both their loyal customers and new ones alike. The changes were so surreal and became a movement—almost harkening back to the days of old when everyone knew everyone else, customers were also friends, and the commitment to each other was very real.

We also witnessed one of the greatest technological adoption phases in history. From video chat to apps and enhanced e-commerce, contactless shopping and better social media outreach, to even the “old school” idea of the telephone being embraced once again. And the one common thread: all of this was meant to better engage with the customer, making their experience far better, far more personalized, and far more enjoyable—even in the hardest of times.

So, here we are—more than six months into a global pandemic and retail has, for the most, part reinvented itself, with new tools in place to face whatever lies ahead. The question becomes, what do we all do now?

If adversity has taught the world anything, it’s that positive actions and momentum should never be stopped. Retailers squeaked by through hard work, determination and a lot of luck. That’s why this new emotional and technological movement MUST be continued.

Now that retailers are moving firmly in the right direction, gathering tons of information about their customers to ensure they know them well enough to engage personally on every front, the next wave of technology needs to be introduced. In this case, the logical next step is simply implementing a better type of database—aka a customer data platform (CDP).

I know, the word “platform” seems daunting, right? It brings about visions of highly complex tools and infrastructure inherently difficult to use and even more expensive than they should be. In this case, however, whoever named it is more to blame for that connotation, because, in all reality, it’s just a database—nothing more. The difference is simply how and what it connects to.

A CDP is just an application that enables a confluence and simplified gathering of data from a variety of sources. It actually makes life that much easier—NOT more difficult as the name implies. Think of it this way: instead of having to constantly manage the data generated from your point-of-sale devices, apps, e-commerce, and phone orders using cumbersome, disparate CSV files and spreadsheets that require collating, sorting, and blah, blah, blah (sorry that sounds horrible to me), a CDP does it all for you.

More so, after amalgamating all of your data into perfect and ever-evolving single-user profiles, a CDP then enables you to use that data to create even better, more personalized engagement with your customers.

This year, the world forced all of us to evolve and re-evaluate what is important, teaching us all the invaluable lesson that luck favors the prepared. And, with all that has happened and all that has been accomplished, being prepared for whatever the future holds is the only step forward that retailers need to take.