5 Considerations When Buying A Retail Analytics Solution

By Yan Krupnik, Marketing Manager, Retalon

In today’s world most retailers understand the value of analytics solutions for their business. However, there are a lot of different software vendors, and solutions out there, so how do you find the system that will work best for your specific business?

Here are five things to keep in mind when searching for the optimal analytic solution for your retail business:

1.      Business Intelligence + Predictive Analytics

A good analytics system fuses the capabilities of business intelligence (what just happened) with predictive analytics (what will happen). BI tools help with increasing visibility though queries, search tools, insight reports, and real-time dashboards, while predictive analytics technology enables retailers to look forwards, anticipate, and adapt to upcoming changes in inventory levels, consumer demand, vendor compliancy and much more… proactively. In fact, predictive analytics has really been gaining momentum recently. Gartner’s Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle shows predictive analytics as the most proven emerging technology in 2012. Similarly, a look at Google Trends reveals that there has been an over 300% spike in searches for predictive analytics since 2010.

2.      Business Specific Predictive Analytics

Your retail environment is unique; do you really think that an analytics tool that is used in banking, healthcare, and social media will be the best choice for you in retail? Make sure that you’re purchasing Business Specific Predictive Analytics that uses retail terminology and doesn’t require to know statistics or mathematics. Furthermore, while the analytics system should be tailored for your specific environment, it should still be flexible enough to take into account your specific business rules, and exceptions.

3.      Easy To Integrate In Existing Environment

Make sure that the system is easy to integrate with your ERP, merchandising, and planning systems. It should be capable of reading data from the existing sources, and present reports in a convenient way for the user. (e.g. support exporting to MS Excel) The graphic interface also makes a huge difference for the end user, so make certain that the User Interface is intuitive, and visual.

4.      Request A System Demo On Your Data

One thing that will help you feel much more confident over your decision when buying an analytics system is doing the proof-of-concept. (Actions speak louder than words). Ask the software vendors to demonstrate how the system addresses your specific requirements. It should be done not just through PowerPoint, but through a proof-of-concept. Let them ran some of your data to demonstrate exactly what kind of benefits you can expect to receive from using their system. Testimonials, and letters of recommendations are great, but a real-life demo is much better.

5.      Know The Total Cost

As a retailer, you already know that the purchase cost is not the final store cost. Ensure that you know what the total cost of the system is. This includes the software solution itself, deployment, integration, training, required hardware and additional software (Operating System, database, etc.), as well as post purchase costs such as professional services, customization, and support. Make sure that the analytics solution doesn’t cost you more than the benefit you’re looking to get out of it.

Yan Krupnik is Marketing Manager for Retalon. Since 2002 Retalon has optimized pricing, inventory management, merchandising, planning, and marketing operations for retail organizations in a variety of industries. Retalon products range from task-oriented solutions to a common analytic platform, resulting in tangible optimization of the supply chain and significant measurable benefits for the entire organization.

For more information check out www.retalon.com.