Optimizing BI ROI In Retail

With such high competitive pressure in the retail industry, it imperative that return on investment [ROI] be measured at both functional and corporate level.

This is especially true for technology investments, yet many retailers are not effectively exploiting technology to optimize their ROI. They tend to focus on single point solutions that are designed to solve a particular objective. The opportunity to fulfill multiple needs with a common solution is often overlooked.

This could apply to a point of sale system or an operational transactional system. Whilst each may adequately fulfil their respective functions, the ROI is not fully optimized if the information captured cannot be extended to other parts of the business, to support consistent, single version of the truth analysis and planning.

Without such an integrated approach, the system is not able to be leveraged to provide retail business intelligence throughout the company.

An integrated Business Intelligence solution identifies questions across the company, the answers of which address its:

• Merchandising
• Operational planning
• Marketing - advertising, promotions
• Vendor analysis
• Supply-chain collaboration

The real value of business intelligence lies in improved productivity and better analysis. Well executed it reverses the 80/20 information challenge - where previously a business user would expect to spend 80 percent of their analysis time extracting information, and 20 percent on the actual analysis. A BI system reduces the time to get the information, and instead allows a much greater amount of time to analyse and act on information gained.

A retail system that combines merchandising, operational and financial reporting with payroll analysis and planning in one common analytical platform can reduce the time taken to produce its monthly management reports from five days to only two hours.

Being able to evaluate results and then make decisions in near real time is extremely valuable for any business.

Next: The Retail BI Evolution

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