With the announcement that the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain has selected SAS Merchandise Intelligence and Customer Intelligence, SAS is on its way to developing a stronger relationship with grocery industry retailers. Winn-Dixie will be implementing a number of SAS software products during a multi-year agreement. The agreement was announced during the 2011 National Retail Federation (NRF) annual convention in New York.
Initially, Winn-Dixie will implement SAS Merchandise Financial Planning, Revenue Optimization, Merchandise Assortment Planning and Retail Space Management. “This partnership will enhance our customers’ shopping experience with the implementation of SAS’ technology and resources to provide improvements in pricing, assortment and category management,” said Maura Hart, CIO, Winn-Dixie.
Together, Winn-Dixie and SAS have plans to refine a full suite of grocery analytics products, which will help SAS further its strategy to secure additional grocery industry customers. “Many grocers have mountains of data but they lack the time and resources to gain meaningful intelligence from it,” noted Diana McHenry, Global Retail Product Marketing for SAS. “SAS is building a bridge so grocers can reap the rewards of advanced analytics just like other segments of the retail industry.”
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SAS currently works with many retailers in different industry segments including Aeropostale, AutoZone, Cabela’s, Family Dollar, Hallmark, Office Depot and Williams-Sonoma. With the Winn-Dixie win, SAS is building its grocery client list, which also includes Wakefern and Tesco.
Winn-Dixie, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, operates 484 retail grocery locations, including 379 in-store pharmacies, in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.
SAS also announced three other new retailer implementations during the NRF convention:
- Chico’s, a SAS customer since 2009, has enhanced its customer intelligence suite with SAS OnDemand: Marketing Automation.
- Gander Mountain has chosen SAS Integrated Merchandise Planning.
- Swedish home and leisure products retailer Rusta has licensed SAS Forecast Server, SAS Space Planning and SAS Inventory Optimization.
