BI for Your Trade
Mention Point-of-Sale (POS) data to sales people in the retail sector and you might not receive a very warm response. Analysis of POS information requires hours, sometimes ever days or weeks, to transform into actionable information.
First, the EDI 832 needs to flatten out and drop into a spreadsheet or SQL database. Then, you need to create a few complex macros or queries, only to get to trend information that, at this point, may no longer be relevant.
Today’s cloud-based POS analytic tools and readily available data render this process —”The Spreadsheet Olympics”— obsolete. With a couple mouse clicks, suppliers can view trend analysis, do geographic assessments, determine in-stock position at the store-SKU level, as well as look at other KPI’s.
The value that brings to the selling organization includes:
- Sales increases
- Better margins
- Cost reductions
- Greater forecast accuracy
- Risk mitigation
So, are you ready to make your POS data work for you?
