Retail Industry

[admin]

Here is a link to an article in CIO Magazine talking about BI in the retail space:

Business Intelligence: A Must for Winning the Holiday Shopping Wars

I know there are some very smart users of BI in the industry locally. How about Woolworths? David Jones? Aldi?

It is a pity the CIO article is US focused and ony talks in general terms.

[Steve Bennett]

Woolies' card carrying bonanza

Julian Lee and Vanda Carson | SMH | August 27, 2008

An unprecedented mountain of data will be amassed by the nation's leading retail company with the launch of a sophisticated credit card that can follow shoppers on their spending trails and be used to entice them to buy more products.
Woolworths' Everyday Money Credit Card is the first in the country to combine a credit card with a sophisticated loyalty program capable of capturing and then sending a shopper's purchasing details back to a central database. The database is linked to the company's recently launched fuel voucher card.

It pre-empts a move by David Jones, which has teamed up with American Express to launch a card by Christmas with potentially similar capabilities.

The Woolworths card was launched yesterday and will be in stores from next week. It will join the 3.8 million plastic fuel voucher cards already on issue, collecting shopping data and sending it back to Woolworths computers. About two-thirds of that number of card holders will have their personal details on a separate database that will be able to "talk" to the card database.

The card will not only collect data on grocery purchases; it will also record information about purchases through Woolworths-owned outlets, from clothing to homewares, petrol, alcohol and electronics.

The retail giant predicts that in five years as many as one in every five transactions in any of their stores will be made on the card, yielding a wealth of consumer shopping data for the company's marketers to pull apart. The marketing industry expects it will only be a matter of time before Woolworths starts to analyse the information and target people with tailored offers based on their buying habits.

Andrew Little, the group managing director of the advertising agency DDB, said the decision to launch the card was "all about the data" and not so much about a grocer trying to become a bank.

"The data is twice as important as the card for them. This is crucial for Woolies as they will be able to track not just what you spend and where, but just as importantly what you are not buying."

He said Australian retailers were lagging their British counterparts, such as Tesco, which had amassed a mountain of data on its customers through its Clubcard.

The rival retailer Coles has about 6 million Fly Buys cardholders but its data collection is limited and its credit card is not capable of collecting similar data because it is outsourced to the credit provider, GE Money.

Mike Ebstein, of MWE Consulting, said the rewards offered - such as extra points for private label goods - were not generous enough to justify it for the average shopper.

"Unless you are spending close to the average, which is $15,000 a year, then the level of reward is probably not going to warrant the additional cost of the higher annual fee and the interest rate.

"So you would have to be spending at least $1000 a month to offset the higher fees associated with any reward card, let alone this particular one."

Woolworths said cardholders could protect their privacy by "opting out" from detailed data collection.

[Doug Heywood]

From Supply Chain Review:

Think outside the wireless box: ABI

September 30, 2008

Any preoccupation with radio frequency identification (RFID) or other short-range wireless communications in supply chain operations is misplaced, according to a new report.

Instead, argues a research brief from ABI Research, a more useful concept is ‘real-time intelligence visualisation’ (RTIV), in which the technology becomes the means to an end, not the end itself.

RTIV is not about the individual technologies, according to Research Director Michael Liard, but is about the process and logic that end-users must embrace.

"That concept focuses on end-users seeing data, or the ‘intelligence’, and their tagged assets in new ways, with ‘real-time eyes’," he says.

RTIV involves the capture of real-time data (regardless of the technology), and the processing and synchronisation of that data with back-end systems through defined rules.

This leads to the creation of actionable business intelligence that is accessible to the relevant systems and people. It involves the establishment of alerts, alarms, actions, decisions, and where required, audit trails and documentation.

The result, according to the research, is that data that can provide a "smart enterprise-wide view" of tagged objects, assets, and personnel through wireless identification and location.

These competitive, yet complementary wireless technologies, approaches, and solutions have historically been treated as independent silos, but they are now converging.

In a growing number of end-user environments a combination of technologies is being used. For example, passive and active RFID may be used jointly for fixed and mobile asset tagging; Wi-Fi- and UWB-based RTLS solutions may be leveraged for hospital asset tracking; or a combination of GPS and active RFID may be employed for cargo tracking and security.

Whatever the technologies involved, Liard says "the end (as well as the beginning) of real-time intelligence visualisation must be the value propositions and business problems challenging end-users".

[Doug Heywood]

Just a rumour but also checkout the discussion about virtual data marts. Cool!

eBay may offer BI-as-a-service to companies
In-house analysts successfully use self-service data marts

Eric Lai (Computerworld) 16/10/2008

eBay, which runs a gigantic data warehouse for internal business intelligence (BI) analytics, is considering taking it outside its firewall and offering it as a Web service to interested companies.

That would duplicate a move by Amazon.com, which built its family of Amazon Web Services for in-house use but is now marketing them to outside customers. Most notable among these services are its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) application hosting service and its S3 hosted storage service.

In eBay's case, the online auctioneer has built a 5 petabyte data warehouse that adds 50 TB of new data each day.


One terabyte every 5 seconds

With the Teradata-based data warehouse able to turn over a terabyte of data in just 5 seconds, eBay has taken advantage of that speed to enable business analysts to build their own "virtual" data marts, according to Oliver Ratzesberger, senior director of architecture and operations at the company.

The virtual data marts are used by about 5,000 business analysts in 100 groups inside eBay. These data marts run off the central data warehouse but are created without the help of central IT, said Ratzesberger.

Business analysts create and upload their own mini-data warehouses using standard Web and analytical tools such as those from Business Objects, SAS and Microstrategy -- and even Microsoft's Excel. This lets the analysts rapidly create and test prototypes of the BI analyses they think they want. After 90 days, successful prototypes are brought to the data warehousing managers, who convert them into production data marts with a minimal level of rewriting.


Quickie marts

"We cut the amount of time needed to build a data mart at least in half, and in some cases up to three to five times," said Ratzesberger.

So is eBay thinking of turning its data warehouse into a utility that can be used by outside subscribing firms?

"Yes we are thinking about it," said Ratzesberger. He acknowledged one problem is how to minimize the time it would take customers to upload large amounts of data to eBay's data warehouse.

That can be avoided, he said, if "you couple analytics as a platform offering that has the data generating part sitting closer together. Then you totally do away with that problem."

In other words, possibly hosting eBay's BI-as-a-service on Amazon's EC2 and storing users' data on S3.

Amazon is using EC2 to provide its own Web-hosted database called SimpleDB. Other vendors who plan to use EC2 and S3 to offer hosted versions of their databases include EnterpriseDB and Oracle.

Self-service BI capabilities have become a hot topic of late. Microsoft announced last week that through "Project Gemini" it plans to create an easy-to-use Excel-based tool that lets regular analysts easily build their own BI queries and dashboards.

But Ratzesberger said that much of the self-service BI capability already came built in to the Teradata 5550 data warehousing software it runs.

"Yes, we built a Web portal and a point-and-click interface. But there was very little that we otherwise had to build," he said. The Teradata software provides "very solid" workload management capabilities, so that "virtual" data marts can be partitioned and be automatically given lower priority than production data marts, Ratzesberger said.

[Doug Heywood]

From a PR newswire:

Wincor Nixdorf's (FRA:WIN) 100,000 Self-Service Devices On Five Continents Monitored Using ProView

Paderborn, Nov 26, 2008 (ABN Newswire) - Wincor Nixdorf’s (FRA:WIN)(PINK:WNXDY) software ProView is used for the control and remote monitoring of self-service systems. With this product, the company has reached a milestone: more than 100,000 self-service devices in more than forty countries on all five continents are now administered and monitored with the help of this software. The machines range from ATMs, transaction terminals, account statement printers, postage stamp and transportation ticket terminals all the way to cash deposit systems and kiosks.

Some of the financial institutions using ProView are Raiffeisen Bank Group in Austria, Halkbank in Turkey, CIMB Bank in Malaysia and Susquehanna Bancshares in the U.S. The software has even taken on the lead in Eastern Europe - two of ProView's many users in this region are leading retail banks in the Ukraine, Privatbank and Nadra Bank.

ProView has been adapted to address the particular requirements of self-service equipment of all kinds. All transaction data is analyzed by the ProView agent on the terminal level and is transferred to the ProView server for processing and output. In particular, ProView ensures high system availability: precise and detailed information on the operating state of each terminal device enables fast, targeted resolution of any problems. Remote service means repairs can be carried out via electronic access from a central location, ensuring that device downtimes and site visits by technicians can be minimized. As a result, this solution leads to highly relevant cost savings and increases the overall profitability of the institution's self-service network.

In addition, ProView makes a highly effective contribution to protecting automated teller machines from manipulation. Wincor Nixdorf's anti-skimming module monitors the entire area around the card input slot. If it senses that a foreign device has been mounted there, it sends a message - known as an "event" - to ProView. This message brings about the immediate initiation of a variety of defensive measures. These and other actions offer customers comprehensive security, and ensure that self-service devices can be put back into service rapidly and are consequently highly available.

In order to simplify service management processes, ProView has been expanded to incorporate a new function for incident management - Incident Manager. When an error occurs, a ticket is opened that documents every individual process step, stores information and displays the current status of the repair work.

Third-party systems can be integrated easily into ProView. ProView can be deployed not only on decentralized systems at the branch level, but also centrally at the head office or at a shared data center or external systems management center. To control the network, ProView offers extensive reports and the option of connection to business intelligence products that automatically identify the key indicators on device performance and availability.

About Wincor Nixdorf Group

Wincor Nixdorf is one of the world’s leading providers of IT solutions and services to retailers and retail banking. Our extensive portfolio is centered around optimizing business processes at banks and retail companies. It is aimed mainly at cutting costs and complexity and improving service to the end customer. We leverage know-how from our core business with banks and retailers to diversify into related sectors. These include postal and lottery companies and hospitality and service station chain operators.

Contact

Andreas Bruck
Head of Corporate Communications
Phone: +49 5251 693 5200
E-Mail: andreas.bruck@wincor-nixdorf.com

[zamir]

Epicor Retail Software as a Service POS Solution Continues to Gain Traction

IBM and Epicor® Collaborate on Delivery of Robust, Cost Effective Solution that Meets the Needs of Small to Midmarket Retailers

14 January, 2009 09:41:00

Epicor Software Corporation (NASDAQ: EPIC), a leading provider of enterprise business software solutions to the midmarket and Global 1000 companies, has announced its Retail Software as a Service (SaaS) solution continues to gain traction with retailers.

The company announced two new customers – Tory Burch and The Paper Store – have selected the SaaS solution, which offers the same advanced functionality used by the world’s leading retailers to small and medium specialty and department store retailers, in a delivery method that dramatically reduces capital investment and implementation requirements.

Epicor’s integrated Retail SaaS solution is a pay-as-you-go model that consists of merchandising, allocation, replenishment, business intelligence, POS, sales audit and CRM. Epicor SaaS is deployed on IBM’s industry leading SurePOS 700 series hardware. SaaS services include hosting of all applications on secure redundant servers, the procurement and management of wide area networks, helpdesk support, system maintenance, including 24/7 data security and backups; disaster recovery and ongoing updates and upgrades to the latest Epicor software releases. With a proven four-month project timeline from project kick off to live, the Epicor Retail SaaS solution offers significant speed-to-market benefits.

Gartner recently made the prediction that, “In 2009, SaaS delivery models will see a 25% increase in adoption by retailers.” Noted in the same report, according to a Gartner survey of more than 110 retailers conducted in third-quarter 2008, “22% of retailers stated that they had implemented or were in the process of implementing a SaaS application.”1

Epicor’s Retail SaaS solution is delivered via a standard POS hardware platform from IBM – the IBM SurePOS 700 series – which enables seamless and timely upgrades, maximum supportability, and superior value via improved speed to market.

“Together, IBM and Epicor are committed to delivering outstanding value to small-to-medium retailers to fully meet their needs in today’s tough economic climate and beyond,” said Leo Suarez, vice president of marketing & strategy, IBM Retail Store Solutions. “Epicor Retail SaaS is consistent with IBM’s ‘on demand’ strategy, where smart and integrated technology yields improved efficiency and decision making for competitive advantage.”

An example of this smart integrated technology is IBM’s Remote Management Agent (RMA) which, together with Epicor Retail POS software, provides retailers the ability to remotely monitor, configure and track hardware, software and applications in one store or multiple store locations, from a central point, as well as perform asset tracking, and diagnostic and problem determination down to the device level. RMA delivers business benefits to retailers with pro-active support and monitoring of in-store hardware and infrastructure that will ensure greater system up time and enable a more enhanced customer shopping experience.

“Our Retail SaaS offering is a true end-to-end retail solution,” said David Henning, executive vice president and general manager for Epicor Retail. “We are the leading provider that offers a complete integrated retail solution with a full range of support services that leverages our extensive in-house expertise from development to deployment through training. Our SaaS solution enables retailers to leverage a trusted and proven solution, delivering everything a retailer needs.

“IBM has been very supportive of our SaaS strategy, and the combination of Epicor Retail POS software and IBM hardware is proving to be the solution of choice for a growing number of customers,” he said.

One of the newest retailers to adopt the Epicor Retail SaaS offering is Tory Burch. Focused on creating stylish apparel and accessories for women of all ages, Tory Burch was launched in February 2004 as a lifestyle concept with multiple product categories, including ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes and jewelry. Tory Burch operates 16 free-standing Tory Burch boutiques and one outlet store across the US. Merchandise is also available through the brand’s website and in more than 400 select department and specialty stores worldwide.

“The Epicor Retail SaaS solution takes the onus off of us to support IT systems, enabling us to focus our efforts and resources on merchandising and customer initiatives, while feeling confident we have the right hardware and software in place to support and grow our retail business,” said Vicki Cantrell, CIO/COO, Tory Burch.

In business since 1963, The Paper Store is a family-owned and operated Specialty Gift Store chain of 23 stores in New England. The Company recently contracted for the Epicor Retail SaaS solution to provide an updated technology framework to support its growing retail operations.

“We conducted an extensive search for a comprehensive integrated retail solution,” said Tim Walsh, Director of IT, The Paper Store. “We were very excited to find that the Epicor Retail SaaS solution offered us the same strong functionality that Tier 1 retailers had access to, but without all the heavy overhead from a deployment, management and cost perspective.”

1. Source: Gartner, Inc., “Predicts 2009: Hardships and Opportunities for Retail” (Dec. 3, 2008)

[admin]

Fran Foo | January 20, 2009

RETAILER 7-Eleven Stores has reached a crucial milestone in its multi-million-dollar SAP upgrade, which will underpin its supply chain and retail operations at 378 outlets.

Dennis Lewis says the SAP upgrade, being done in four phases, will result in huge benefits for 7-Eleven Picture: David Crosling

The contract with SAP was signed off by the privately held company in late 2007 but was made public only last week.

The company will use upgraded SAP software to strengthen its data analytics capability and improve transparency to franchisees.

The project consisted of four phases, with the first, an upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0, completed in May 2008, chief information officer Dennis Lewis said.

The first phase mainly focused on the head office, which has 140 users.

"That deployment was in category management, brand marketing, supply chain and retail operations from a head office viewpoint, and all those areas have defined and agreed benefits," Mr Lewis said.

He was coy on specifics, but said myriad benefits resulted from the upgrade.

"This meant lower maintenance costs, and being on the latest release meant newer functionality.

"It also allowed us to retire quite a large amount of custom code and provide more flexibility in managing pricing across the chain.

"Better in-store shelf space management was another gain," he said.

The return on investment for the ERP upgrade will take five years, but the upgrade is the building block for subsequent phases.

The retailer and franchiser wrapped up a SAP Business Intelligence project last month, which Mr Lewis said provided the biggest benefit to the company.

"The new BI gives us a better reporting system and this gives us the capability to do a lot of things at a store level that we couldn't do previously," he said.

The BI component has an estimated two-year return on investment.

In phase three, 7-Eleven would look at how to use its store portal, he said.

The final part of the project would involve a general ledger upgrade and possibly use the plant maintenance capability to manage contractors, he said.

The entire project is expected to be completed in 2011.

The chain's SAP environment runs on IBM's System i platform. It is mainly a Microsoft shop for other applications.

In-store point-of-sale applications are provided by Radiant Systems, while Micropay provides payroll services.

The chain will use the internet to improve its relationship with customers.

"There are no e-commerce plans per se, but we'll keep using the web as a communications tool.

"For example, Slurpee.com.au provides us with very valuable feedback, and from the right demographics."

[fgeorge]

From Computerworld:

Postie Plus credits SAP for beating market in Q4 08

Retailer cites software for market cap boost

By David Watson, Auckland | Wednesday, 4 February, 2009

Clothing retailer Postie Plus cites its implementation of SAP as one of the factors driving its better-than-average performance in consulting firm Deloitte’s latest South Island index.

The index is a regular survey conducted by Deloitte of South Island-based companies listed on the NZX and NZAX, which tracks the firms’ market capitalisation.

The latest index, released this month, compares South Island companies’ market cap at the end of the September-December quarter compared with their position at the end of the previous quarter, from July to September.

While many southern firms experienced a decline in market cap, leading to an overall decline of $694 million — or 18.4% — for the 34 companies in the index during the quarter, Postie Plus was one of the few to buck the trend, recording an increase in market cap of $1.2 million, or 10%.

Postie Plus CEO Ron Boskell, who is interviewed in the Index report, cites a number of factors, including implementing a system from SAP in 2006-07, as key to its performance during the quarter.

Talking to Deloitte, Boskell noted “Duplication is the unpardonable sin in business and it was a focus to cut out any areas in our business where we were doubling up.

“In SAP we now have one version of the truth across the business and SAP is gaining traction.

“It is now saving us considerable time with day-to-day tasks, and as a result, this allows us more time for analysis of the business,” he is quoted as saying in the Index report.

Boskell also cites inventory reduction, the sale of the Arbuckles division and other measures as contributing to Postie Plus’ performance.

Postie Plus decided to implement several SAP applications from SAP’s mySAP ERP product, in 2006, following a review of its systems the previous year.

The systems included financials, Warehouse Management and SAP’s Business Warehouse business intelligence product. The package was installed by SAP partner Ciber.

Christchurch sharebroker Grant Williamson told The Christchurch Press that not too much should be read into the Postie Plus market cap increase, as its shares were thinly traded and were priced so low that it would take a move of only a few cents for them to rise 10%.

Nonetheless, Postie Plus CEO Boskell says in the Deloitte interview that he is positive about the future.

Decreases in the market cap of large South Island-based primary industry companies were the main reason for the overall 18.4% decrease in the index.

© Fairfax Business Group

[Steve Bennett]

From Australian IT:

Email slip puts Woolies $100m plan on display

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Mahesh Sharma | March 31, 2009

AN email slip-up has revealed the list of vendors jockeying for a slice of one of the country's biggest technology projects, Woolworths' Project Galaxy Partner Services.

The details emerged as the retail giant completed a call for tenders on Project Galaxy, the services component for its bid to use SAP technology to overhaul merchandising, point-of-sale and retail systems across all Woolworths brands.

Woolworths will be the lead installer of the system but will need a variety of players to perform services work.

Companies vying for the work were named in an email sent by Woolworths to the tenderers, seen by The Australian.

They are:Cap Gemini, Wipro, Accenture, Back Office, Bearing Point, Changeworks, Ciber, Cubic, Fujitsu, HCL, IBM, Infosys, KPMG, McKinsey, PWC, Revolution IT, RWD, SAP, Satyam, Supply Chain and TCS.

The value of the work is believed to be in excess of $100million but a Woolworths spokesperson would not comment on that figure.

Industry sources said Project Galaxy was one of the biggest technology projects nationally.

The system will be rolled out across a number of Woolworths brands including Big W, BWS, Countdown, Dan Murphy's, Foodtown, Freshchoice, Supervalue, Woolworths-Caltex, Woolworths and Woolworths Liquor.

The retailer has confirmed SAP software will replace the merchandising systems.

According to reports the licences are worth between $50million and $100 million, but a spokesperson dismissed those figures as incorrect.

The system will include a customer relationship management module, point of sale and enterprise resource planning systems, and a Netweaver platform.

It is understood the Galaxy project will take a number of years.

Woolworths has told tenderers the project will deliver a system for its user base, helping reduce the cost of doing business.

A Woolworths spokesperson said Galaxy was in its embryonic stages and declined to give further details.

It is the third phase of Woolworths' end-to-end business restructure, dubbed Project Refresh.

The retailer has spent about $1billion on the initiative since 1999, delivering $6 billion in cost savings, according to a company spokesperson.

The first phase of Project Refresh focused on combining the state-based buying teams into a centrally co-ordinated national force.

The second phase, Project Mercury, focused on rebuilding the supply chain and logistical component.

Woolworths also consolidated its distribution centre footprint as part of the refresh, scaling down from 31 centres to nine regional centres and two national centres.

Project Galaxy will give Woolworths an even bigger technology advantage over its biggest rival, Coles.

Late last year Coles boss Ian McLeod admitted there had been several delays to the $800 million technology and supply chain revamp.

[admin]

HP wins Woolworths contract with BI solution

by Peter Dinham, Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Woolworths in Australia is looking to increase operational efficiencies and improve insight into store operations with its selection of HP to provide an enterprise data warehousing platform and consulting services.


Geoff Marler, group development manager at the Woolworths group, said today the retailer had chosen the HP Neoview enterprise data warehousing platform, along with HP consulting services, to better capture information from disparate sources and load it into a central repository, and to provide the company with a single view of critical business information.

Marler says the first implementation phase of HP Neoview for information collection and operational reporting in its BIG W stores has been completed.

According to Marler, Woolworths will use HP Neoview to handle extremely high data volumes and complex mixed workloads, to “deliver users the right information at the right time,” and, he added, HP’s strong global delivery capabilities in business intelligence and retail provided it with a “high-quality, cost-competitive solution.”

“At Woolworths, enhancing operational efficiency is essential in today’s competitive market, and improving our insights into store operations is necessary to take our customer service to the next level.”

HP VP BI solutions for Asia Pacific & Japan, Michelle Dorn, says Woolworths is using the expertise of HP’s business intelligence services focused on technical solutions to deliver better access to the information needed, and, she maintains, “it will “gain timely insight for more actionable intelligence and day-to-day decision making with HP Neoview.”

“We are helping Woolworths create a consistent view of business data that will enable them to realise the full potential of their business intelligence investment.”


HP's spin on the implementation:

Woolworths adds BI solution to department stores
BI deemed necessary for better customer service

Techworld, Rodney Gedda 28/04/2009 09:53:00

Retail giant Woolworths has implemented an enterprise data warehousing platform to improve efficiency and insight into its store operations.

Woolworths has completed the first implementation phase of HP Neoview for information collection and operational reporting in its BIG W department stores.

The aim of the project is to provide a single view of critical business information.

Woolworths Limited group development manager Geoff Marler said enhancing operational efficiency is essential in today’s competitive market, and “improving our insights into store operations is necessary to take our customer service to the next level.”

Woolworths is also using HP’s BI services for the project along with Informatica for data integration, SAS for business analytics and the SAP-owned Business Objects for reporting.

Vice president of BI Solutions at HP Asia Pacific and Japan, Michelle Dorn, said the company is helping Woolworths create a consistent view of business data that will enable it to “realise the full potential of their business intelligence investment”.