[Carstairs]

That analogy only works if its only the store manager keeping the records. Whats really happening is the store manager is outsouring his record keeping to a 3rd party who has full access to the data from his store and data from millions of other stores too.

[andromeduck]

You mean like any big chain or conglomerate or Visa/MasterCard? Consulting/analytics isn't anything new for retail either.