3 ways brands can unlock value from same-day location-based analytics

Daily location-based analytics is not an eCommerce tool; It’s a total business tool.

The whole idea of having such a tool is in using and sharing insights extracted from it across multiple teams. This way, everyone in the organization can speak the same language (with everyone looking at the same dataset); collaborate to solve business problems; and manage the business more efficiently and effectively.

The end goal: Accelerating business growth.

Winning at omnichannel is a team sport

In this blog, we explore 3 specific ways brands can unlock value by using a daily, location-based omnichannel analytics solution:

1. Time savings
2. Collaborative problem solving 
3. Business process improvement

[Editor's note: For more insights watch our webinar on demand: "Why daily omnichannel data is a game-changer for FMCG brands." Click here to view.]

1. Time Savings

When talking omnichannel, brands are dealing with huge data sets: 4,000+ Walmart US stores, 2,800+ U.K. Tesco stores; 2,000 U.S. Target stores; you get the picture. (For more see our blog: The heightening omnichannel landscape, and what it means for brands.). Brands utilizing an omnichannel tool to collect, collate and crunch this level of data are able to perform tasks, make decisions, and generally run your business more efficiently, keeping you a step ahead of the competition. The tool does all the heavy lifting for you, freeing up time for you and teams across the organization to focus on value-add activities that will drive the business.

You’ll also get the biggest bang for your buck when everyone in the organization has access to your omnichannel solution. We recommend brands use it as a single source of truth for what’s happening at store level across all retailers that carry your products. This way the “right” reports for the “right” levels get into the hands of the right people (e.g., overview reports for C-suite; detailed store and SKU reports for analysts; etc.) who can take fast action to resolve issues or capitalize on opportunities.

Let’s look at an example:

Put yourself in the Sales Controller role at your organization. Typically, your main business concerns on a day-to-day basis are: 

• How are my regions performing from an availability perspective?
• Where are my biggest stock issues?

Without an omnichannel analytics tool at your disposal, addressing these questions could take days if not weeks. By then, any problems could be either in the rearview mirror, too late to address; or worse yet, snowballing out of control. With an analytics tool, however, you’re not only going to have ready access to the data, but get a quick snapshot that lets you see what’s going on across all your regions in a single glance.

Your teams no longer operate in “paralysis by analysis” mode, manipulating files and files of raw data. Instead, the omnichannel analytics tool does all the heavy lifting, presenting data in simple-to-read dashboards. In other words, data is turned into insights in a matter of seconds.

Time savings are immeasurable, giving you the ability to immediately spot availability trend issues, and hand off the task of determining the “why” to other teams. This speeds up decision making immensely, giving you a competitive advantage.

Analytics apps, like eStoreCheck Omnichannel, do all the heavy lifting of the data, freeing up time for more value-add activities

2. Collaborative problem-solving

While time-savings and efficiency is a huge plus for brands using an omnichannel tool, it’s not the only one. Another big way brands benefit is in using insights from the tool to connect teams and people within those teams. In other words, you can mobilize teams to action quickly based on the data. The data becomes the foundation—the single source of truth for the organization—to facilitate collaborative problem-solving and drive more effective business decisions.

Let’s look at an example:

Reprising your role as Sales Controller, your overview dashboard revealed an inventory problem in France, for example. But why? You, Madam Controller, hand this insight off to your team to investigate what’s causing the stock outage. Your regional MD starts diving deeper into the data.

One useful application is analyzing store-level stock rates along with pricing & promotion data. Our MD in France does just that, and sure enough discovers several stores in his region have been running out of stock during your promotion.

Herein lies the power of having daily location-based data; You can immediately set off a chain of events, with multiple teams actioning on that data. For example:

1. Alert Advertising to stop any paid ads on products that are out of stock (otherwise you’re just throwing money to the wind)
2. Prompt your Account Managers to request the retail partner order more product ahead of your next promotion, based on the data
3. Feed the data & insights to the Supply Chain team, which can use as input to improve demand forecasting & planning process

3. Business process improvement

Having access to store-based insights and intelligence every day puts you in the driver’s seat to solve problems that much sooner. The sooner you find a problem, the sooner you can impact the process, the sooner the problem gets solved.

Knowledge is power. Having the power sooner puts you in control to initiate change and drive solutions that will maximize growth.

Let’s look at an example:

The real-life use case below is based on the experience of a multinational FMCG brand client. It shows how the organization is utilizing insights from our eStoreCheck Omnichannel solution to transform its sales and inventory management processes.

A top challenge for the company was tracking and maintaining accurate inventory levels across channels and retailers. It experienced frequent out-of-stocks, leading to lost sales opportunities.

Deploying eStoreCheck Omnichannel, the brand gained access to high-frequency granular data from all locations carrying its products. Armed with near-real time (same day) intelligence on product sales patterns, peak sales times by location, and which stores are most prone to inventory shortages, the brand set the wheels in motion to improve its inventory management and supply chain processes.

The result was more consistent product availability across channels, leading to a better shopping experience and a reduction in lost sales. In turn, this meant higher revenue and market share gains. Moreover, more efficient inventory management processes meant less waste from unsold products and lower costs associated with transportation and storage—translating to better profit margins.

Key takeaways: What it means for brands  

Brands need to start reframing the way data is used to manage the business. The value of having a daily, location-based omnichannel solution is that it:

1. Lowers the complexity of managing mass data. It simplifies tasks and processes, e.g., collecting and manipulating data, giving people the time and space to think.
2. Lowers the complexity of how your people work together. It helps connect people and teams together, getting people gelling in such a way to form a super team of problem solvers.
3. Lowers the complexity of taking action, faster, based on that data. Solutions, such as eStoreCheck Omnichannel, make adapting processes light and easy, because the data helps people do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.