Point of Sales Mart Whitepaper


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POSmart White Paper

Table of Contents

Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 1

Why Is Retail POS Data Important?.......................................................................................................... 2

POSmart Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 2

POSmart Benefits ......................................................................................................................................... 3

POSMart Application Architecture............................................................................................................ 5

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.


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Overview

POSmart automates the integration of point-of-sale (POS) demand level data and presents

it back to business management in a graphic manner, allowing management to quickly

and easily pin-point areas of increased potential and take immediate action to seize theopportunity. The same holds true for quickly finding areas of concern and taking

corrective action before it becomes a problem.

Successful CPG manufacturers and CPG merchandising companies believe their success

relies on a thorough knowledge of their business by understanding and providing superiorservice to their retail customers. Such knowledge enables a business to be proactive,

rather than reactive in their decision-making process, an essential ingredient to gaining a

competitive edge. Access to quality information is a vital ingredient in making thishappen. Without such information, identifying stock-outs, tracking sales and inventory,

or forecasting customer demand can often rely on assumptions or erroneous data rather

than facts.

While Management may have the information to support their decision-making

processes, no single source of customer point-of-sales information currently exists that

integrates all retailers down to the SKU and store level until now. Large retailers such asWal-Mart, K-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, Lowes and Home Depot provide an abundance of

information regarding their own environments. Other retailers provide only basic data.

However, understanding demand level consumption for each retailer is a daunting task.The effort to compare product family sales across all retailers combined with historical

data for trend analysis becomes a complex effort, as does answering basic questions such

as, What are our top 10 products across all retailers?' or Which stores have not sold a

product in the past 30 days that did sell it 60 days ago? or Show me year-over-yearcomparisons by month, quarter and product category allowing me to drill down into the

product and customer hierarchy or Show me each retailers share of revenue and growth

for each product category by week, month, quarter and year, allowing me to drill down toregion/district, sales rep and store. Each of these seemingly simple requests requires a

time consuming consolidation of information from numerous retail data sources. Some

come in the form of EDI 852 files, others are in their own flat file format, while otherretailers require you to create and download the file via the internet.

The need to integrate internal data, such asshipments and forecasts, is also quickly becoming

a valuable measurement for inventory management

and product manufacturing. Shipshare is nowthe standard for comparing shipments to

consumption. POSmart integrates POS data along

with data from your internal systems, such as

shipments. This allows companies to adjustforecasts based uponfacts and not gut feel.

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc. 1 3/30/2006


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Why Is Retail POS Data Important?

Imagine for a minute that you are the manager of a Super Wal-Mart store and you are in

charge of customer satisfaction, store profitability and product placement. Wouldnt you

give optimal shelf space and product visibility to products that sell best and have ampleinventory? As a store manager, you take note that they are typically from manufacturers

that have a solid understanding of demand level consumption (POS) and inventory

management (shipments).

POS data contains the information you need to understand what is happening at the

retailer store and shelf level. However, you as the manufacturer, have the burden oftrying to manage this at thousands of stores across many retailers. How are you going to

gather all this information, ensure it is valid and not duplicate or incorrect data,

consolidate it and make sense of it? Is there a way to automate the process so that mosttime is spent analyzing the information instead of gathering it, validating and

consolidating it all? And how can historical data be included so that you can compare

year-to-date results with prior years and understand long and short term product trends?

POSmart Overview

POSmart is a unique and comprehensive application consisting of 4 essentialcomponents: Visual Integration Studio for out-of-the-box data integration extractors for

cleansing, validating and consolidating POS data from all retailer POS data regardless of

the data format; POSmart Data Manager so that you can easily manage the environmentthrough an easy to use interface; the POSmart database design for a time tested data

model that is designed as either a stand alone data mart or integrated into your data

warehouse strategy; and our BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal that allows all potential

users, whether novice, executives or power users, easy and instant access to dynamicbuilt in reports. POSmart supports all major database vendors so that you can usewhichever database your company has standardized on.

POSmart Visual Integration Studios cleansing andvalidation processes were built through years of

experience implementing POS reporting solutions for

major CPG manufacturers. All were dealing with the

same dilemma: They can get the data in the rawformats from the retailers but the business users want

it all integrated, consolidated and simplified with

instant and easy access for proactive reporting andanalysis. POSmarts validation processes are fully

automated. For example, your items are cross referenced with retailer item numbers via

an automated UPC cross reference process. Hierarchies are set up and completelymaintained through pre-designed processes. Stores are automatically entered into the

intelligent database as data flows through the validation processes. The entire process,

beginning to end, is automated and customized to your unique business model.



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POSmart Data Manager allows designated business users to edit data in the open

systems POSmart database. For example, Wal-Mart may add a new store that needs to bereflected in the POSmart intelligent database. POSmarts validation processes will record

the new store and all POS transactions and load them into the open database. However,

you can use the browser based POSmart Data Manager Console to add additional

information not found in the original POS transaction such as store size, store managername, etc. In addition, POSmart Data Manager allows you to add new retailers, view all

supported retailers, and edit dimensional fields such as product hierarchies and product

descriptions.

POSmarts analysis tool, the BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal, interfaces with the

POSmart intelligent database. BlueSky isentirely browser basedallowing you to get

information to business users such as managers,

field reps and executives any time and fromanywhere. BlueSky supports record level

security, report distribution, OLAP analysis andKey Performance Indicators (KPI) via its easy-

to-use, point-and-click highly graphicalinterface. If users are comfortable with portals

such as Yahoo! and Google, then they will feel

right at home with BlueSkys intuitive point-and-click graphical interface.

POSmart uses Best Practices data mart/warehouse fundamentals within its openintelligent database. POSmart is also open to other business intelligence tools such as

Cognos, Business Objects, Microstrategy, Crystal Reports and any other tool that caninterface with a relational database, thus allowing you to leverage tools you may already

be using. The POSmart intelligent database is optimized for Microsoft SQL Server,

Oracle and DB2.

Knowing and understanding your customer, the retailer, is critical in gaining favorable

shelf space. With POSmarts unique work-offline capabilities your sales reps and

managers can show product performance at their finger tips through our interactivereports and provide buyers with immediate answers to their questions. They can now

relate to buyers based on their terms and go in prepared to improve inventory turns and

optimize shelf space.

POSmart Benefits

The POSmart application provides CPG Manufacturers and CPG merchandising companies

with an easy method to analyze their point of sales (POS) information. The key benefit of the

application is its integration ofallPOS information provided by the various retail chains.Whether supplied via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or a propriety application such as



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Wal-Marts Retail Link, the information is transformed and consolidated into a common

environment. End result being an integrated POS reporting and analysis application givingbusiness users the ability to easily track retail sales and provide them with a competitive

advantage that identifies consumer purchasing preferences and trends.

The following identifies key features of the POSmart application:

Scheduled automated processes to transform and load POS transactions and supportinginformation such as retailer stores and items.

POSmart Data Manager provides the administrator a method to add and modifyinformation within the POSMart application, without the need for IT resources.

Pre-designed and interactive reports specific to CPG and ready for business useranalysis.

A consolidated database of POS transactional information designed for easy and fastaccess by the business users as either a stand alone application or integrated into an

existing data warehouse strategy.

Ability for a novice to quickly and easily create powerful reports whether presenting toyour internal management, retail buyers or retail management.

Support for all Retail Calendars and Retail Item Definitions for presenting theinformation to retailers in their terms.

Work-offline capabilities allow you to take the interactive reports with you whencompletely disconnected from your internal network.

A flexible architecture to allow easy accommodation of new retailers, stores, and items.

BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal, a web-enabled application to provide businessusers a method to easily analyze and track key POS measures, retailer and store level

trends, and any type of consumption level reporting. Integration into an existing data warehouse strategy or as a stand alone data mart.

Either can feed other operational systems if required.

POSmart delivers a total solution to support POS analysis and reporting needs across your

organization and customer base.



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POSMart Application Architecture

Point of Sales Mart Whitepaper

Documents

Transcript of Point of Sales Mart Whitepaper