DATA DRIVEN RETAIL SUCCESS

Maximise your retail sell-thru data

table of contents

Introduction ........................................................................................ 03

Changing relationships ................................................................... 04

Collaboration ....................................................................................... 05

Challenges ............................................................................................ 06

How Phocas BI can help .................................................................. 07

3

Most organisations exist within a complex labyrinth of vendors, suppliers, customers, distributors, and business partners. Understanding and leveraging these supply chain relationships are key success factors in navigating an increasingly interconnected world.To meet today’s competitive demands the manufacturing, wholesale and retail process must be optimised across all levels of the supply chain – from factory to warehouse to retail outlet to customer. This requires all participating companies to work together.The sharing of Point-of-Sale (POS) retail data between retailers and suppliers offers significant opportunities to retailers as well as to manufacturers and suppliers. Manufacturers and suppliers can use that data for:

• Demand planning to create reliable forecasts• Improving supply chains to avoid over or under stocking• Developing a better understanding of customer buying habits to help drive targeted advertising and marketing campaigns.

The ability to leverage operational POS data is redefining how companies go to market, execute against their strategies, manage product availability, and drive sales performance through measurement and incentives.

Access to this data is allowing manufacturers and retailers to work closer together to grab a larger share of customers’ spend

introduction building a holistic view of the supply chain

4

84% of retailers in the US share point-of-sale (POS) data with suppliers and 63% view data sharing as a strategic initiative*

In the past retailers maintained very tight control of their POS data. Retailers wanted to maintain their ownership of the customer, where they viewed sharing data on sales and service with suppliers would undermine that position.

Only in recent years have they been prepared to share this information to the supply-chain. Retail has been under significant pressure from a range of economic challenges as well as from the ever increasing growth in ecommerce. They now see more benefit in sharing this data to meet their competitive threats and to cope with general trends in the economy.

Online retail and e-commerce have challenged the traditional methods for wholesaling, distribution and retail outlets. Everything that is transacted online and the associated data can easily be tracked, stored and analysed. It has allowed manufacturers and distributors to bypass the traditional retail outlets and sell direct to the customer – ultimately redefining who owns the relationship with the shopper.

changing relationships the changing relationship between retailers and suppliers

*The “2010 Retailer/Supplier Shared Data Study” produced by Consumer Goods Technology and Retail Information Systems

5

collaboration collaboration is the name of the gameThrough collaboration and data sharing, retailers and suppliers can access and analyse a common set of data. This improved transparency on key business metrics can help establish a single holistic view of the supply process, thereby enhancing the interaction between buyer and seller and ultimately the customer.

By suppliers having access to this information in an easy to understand format helps them with the management of promotions, new product introductions, stock and sales plans, replenishment programs, marketing campaigns, etc.

Product activity data (PAD) is the key information a retailer uses when determining the next order to make from the supplier, which ranges to delete or expand, and how to manage their shelf space.

Product Activity Data (PAD) includes:

• Scanned sales• Stock on order• Stock on hand• By SKU• By store

6

manual process

the challenges

lack of insightHowever, the biggest drawback in doing it manually is that the formats (Excel, PDF, or CSV) lack the actionable insight, analytical tools and integration capabilities suppliers need to use the

data effectively.

non stardardisedEach retailer may provide their own unique set of data. Some may provide sales by item for each store on a weekly basis. Others may provide more granular results such as sales by item

for each store on a daily basis. For both weekly and daily data sharing, between 10 and 1000 fields may be available per transaction depending upon the retailer’s POS system. The structure

of the data files shared often varies by retailer. In many cases the retailers may share the same set of data elements, but call them by different names.

There is a general lack of standardisation in managing what can be very large data sets, with different retailers maintaining different data models and methods for sharing that data out to suppliers. Historically, POS analytics have been shared via syndicated data services through vendors such as Nielsen who aggregate data across a large number of retail chains. They then package and distribute the relevant data for the different suppliers.

Unfortunately, the systems and reporting tools retailers and suppliers use to share data are inadequate. It’s frequently not in a format that is user-friendly and may require a good deal of

manual intervention and manipulation to obtain meaningful insight into the data.

It seems the most common data sharing process involves the manual creation and distribution of reports using excel, csv or pdf. The process is time consuming, error prone and burdens staff and management who could be far better employed in other valuable activities within the business.

7

how phocas bi can helpPhocas is a solution that allows structured and unstructured data from a variety of sources to be extracted and centralised so accurate, timely yet comprehensive information is available in an easy to understand format.

POS data is typically distributed via a number of different reports and formats depending on the retailer providing the information. Phocas allows the supplier or manufacturer to have a single view of all this data. The ability to combine and use a common format for analysis offers a number of significant benefits.

With Phocas you can have all your Retail POS data at your fingertips automatically. More importantly it allows you to view the information anyway you want to, offering tremendous flexibility and insight into your supply chain.

Phocas Software will allow you to:

Capture, monitor and analyse information about keytrends, opportunities and challenges

Access up-to-date PAD information anywhere atanytime through Phocas Mobile BI on a tablet

Reduce the operating expenses, staffing resources andthe errors associated with manually produced reports

To learn more about how Phocas may help with your company, please visit

http://www.phocassoftware.com