By Chris Blasinsky
TUCSON – Business Intelligence, a phrase coined in 1865 by Richard Millar Devens in the “Cyclopaedia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes,” is in simple terms a way to look at the big picture, according to VeriFone Inc. Principal Software Architect David Ezell, in a session he moderated at the Conexxus Annual Conference (formerly known as PCATS) this week.
Ezell suggested that BI within the convenience and fuel retailing industry today allows retailers to look at the data they’re mining and take action. However, he cautioned that it’s not always that simple: It’s often “like finding a specific set of needles in a haystack.”
Jenny Bullard, CIO of Waycross, Georgia-based Flash Foods, talked about her experiences within the data world, noting that her company began implementing scanning in 1998, back when most everything was still manual, but it wasn’t until 2006 when Flash Foods began using Pinnacle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solution that the company began to reap the benefits of BI by collecting, analyzing and storing all of the “big data” it was collecting.
Flash Foods, explained Bullard, is able to drill down into specific categories, as defined by the NACS Category Definitions, and create scheduled dashboards that show both year-to-date and month-to-date product category analysis. Foodservice reporting capabilities allow the company to provide reports that drill down to specific times of day, which in turn helps stores manage product availability.
For the future, Bullard explained that Flash Foods is beginning to explore capabilities with its mobile app and mobile payments by tracking what customers are buying and sending them coupons based on their buying habits.
Donna Perkins, pricebook manager at Calloway Oil, which operates 23 E-Z Stop convenience stores in east Tennessee, shared how her company upgraded its older BI tools to reassess how its coolers were being set, a move that got the company away from vendors dictating packaged beverage product placement to a market-based solution. Now, store managers are able to set cooler doors based on real data.
“Everyone had to earn their spot in the cooler,” she said, noting that the company uses its own sales data to set items, beginning with the top sellers to non-movers. The retailer is now looking at market basket data to develop strategies for cigarettes and make a plan to either lower overall margins or re-implement multi-packs.
Perkins said that the company is able to respond to data appropriately, and not make decisions based on opinions. “We’re not guessing,” she said. “We’re making decisions based on what the data is telling us.”
Ed Freels, director of information systems at 36-store Worcester, Massachusetts-based Honey Farms Inc., shared that his company also uses Pinnacle’s EPM solution, which, like Perkins, ensures decisions are made based on what the data is showing, but he also stressed the importance of data integrity. He showed an example of a report where days are missing from certain stores due to closures from snow. “We need to account for these types of anomalies when looking at monthly reports,” he said.
A hidden gem revealed through the EPM solution is putting the 80/20 inventory rule to work. Using candy as an example, Freels said that knowing a lot of one product line has sold out is not as valuable as knowing that a product line is being overstocked and not selling at all.
At Honey Farms, Freels said its current strategy is to stay the course with its BI capabilities. “We’re taking the horse to the water and making him drink,” he said.
Stay tuned to NACS Online and NACS Magazine for more highlights from this year’s Conexxus Annual Conference and save the date for next year’s event, April 26 – 30 at the Loews Annapolis Hotel in Annapolis, Md.