Save Mart Takes Advantage of Analytics

By Caterina Pontoriero
Retail businesses generate a wealth of data, and knowing how to leverage that data can translate into profits for retailers. Save Mart Supermarkets not only recognized how important business intelligence (BI) is, but also realized that the company itself needed to take advantage of the benefits of analyzing data.
“We saw a huge opportunity in boosting our company performance and decision making with BI,” says Aashish Chandra, senior director of information technology for Save Mart. “Companies that leverage and exploit their information assets have a strategic advantage over their competitors.”
However, Save Mart was measuring data in-house, and the process wasn’t cutting it. “We would look at our transaction log (TLOG) data and search for transactions manually,” explains Chandra. “For the limited information gathered, that was a prohibitive, tedious and often time consuming process.”
That’s why the company decided to look into a BI solution. “We knew that we were missing out on actionable intelligence by not having access to our market basket information,” says Chandra.

Fast Solution
After researching a few major solutions on the market, Save Mart implemented 1010data. The company wanted to quickly implement a solution that would accurately and reliably handle all its data.

Save Mart uses 1010data for market basket analysis, ad hoc reporting, research for finance and bookkeeping, shrink monitoring from loss prevention and measuring and analyzing promotions.
“1010data has changed the way we do promotions,” says Chandra. “We now have visibility and insights into our new sales initiatives  that we never had before. The ability to measure the performance of our promotions and marketing initiatives allows us to make appropriate changes in a timely manner to be more effective in our planning and execution.”

1010data has also helped Save Mart uncover loss prevention issues and improve efficiencies with ad hoc reporting.“Ever since we went live with 1010data, we have continued to add more sources of data to derive incremental value for our business,” says Chandra.

Lasting Partnership
Another benefit to selecting 1010data for Save Mart’s BI needs has been a positive relationship between the two companies.

“1010data demonstrated a great partnership with us during the initial implementation,” says Chandra. “They did a fabulous job of loading the two years’ worth of historical TLOG data quickly, accurately and reliably and continue to be a good business partner to Save Mart.”

Save Mart will continue to leverage the capabilities of 1010data to perform analysis throughout the enterprise including shipping, receiving and inventory data from the supply chain.

“From category analysis for space management to marketing, merchandising and loss prevention, our business and support teams are all finding significant value in this powerful solution,” says Chandra. “We saw benefits quickly for the entire organization and can react faster as needed in the dynamic environment we work in now.”