Riteway and BeaconUnited buy into analytics success with Spotfire

Differentiation, growth, and customer success

Challenge

"Our team is tasked with delivering insights to our sales team that provide them with a better understanding of trends and opportunities at particular grocery retailers," says Elisa Westlund, director of Insights, Analytics, and Marketing. "We try to find opportunities that will have the greatest sales impact for clients and grocers.

"Data growth created a real challenge as we passed Excel's capabilities. We receive both Nielsen and scanned point-of-sale data from retailers, and much of the data is not usable in its raw state; it needs data wrangling. Multiple divisions were doing the same tasks. Analysts were 80% data wranglers and 20% data analysts. We needed to flip that model and become more efficient at deriving insights and getting actionable information versus merely providing static sales reporting.

Solution

"We evaluated more than 50 data visualization tools. Some of those included Tableau, MicroStrategy, Birst, Domo, and Qlik. Our requirements were being able to connect to our data, visualize data in multiple ways, use geolocation data so we could map to the store level, and incorporate predictive analytics and statistical modeling. Our data segmentation vendor asked if we had looked at TIBCO Spotfire® analytics. Once we evaluated the tool, we knew we had to add a requirement for interactive visualizations to allow our sales team to work independently to find insightful information. We also did not want our clients to have to download an app to view dashboards.

"TIBCO Spotfire® looks so clean and works so well. It really separates itself in flexibility and scalability. If I clean my data, another division can use it, along with the same visualizations. We can work together and be independent. With the Spotfire system on Amazon Web Services, I can take the data with me in a way I never could before. Without the cloud, I wouldn't have the same interactions with our retailers.

Benefits

Differentiation that opens doors

"TIBCO sets itself apart with interactive visualizations and built-in predictive modeling. You click on a graphic and subsequent visualizations show which data it affects. It's a wow factor that has set us apart.

"Spotfire developers did a great job helping us understand how to best use it. They showed us a planogram tool that shows how the software aids both individual brands and the end retailer. It opened doors. I can sit with a buyer and use the data to answer questions on the fly. That's never been possible before.

Business Ggrowth and customer success

"Since Spotfire analytics went online, we’ve experienced significant business growth. It's not all because of Spotfire, but it played a key role in our meeting new clients and helping their growth and distribution. For our division, the Spotfire system absolutely paid for itself within the first year.

100% adoption, collaboration, relationship building

"We have many users, and it's fun to walk them through why it's so meaningful: 'This chart tells you the volume of your products, and the color represents the trend.' If we didn't make it easy, we would never have gotten the adoption—and I'm happy to say we have 100% adoption. That is a big achievement.

"Now we rapidly refresh data and analytics across 80 categories, impossible before. It's bringing the sales team to the analytics team with meaningful questions: 'Why is my item doing this? Why isn't this brand performing?' Time-to- insight is 10X faster than Excel. We can partner with brands in more impactful ways because analysts have time for business building.

"Retailers who didn't want outside data interaction are opening their doors. We're excited, because when you can give them impactful information, the relationship is stronger. The buyer can ask, 'How many hazelnut coffees do I have on my shelf? How many French vanilla?' It's not just a sales ranking of all K-cups. We've added levels of attributes to help a buyer identify duplication and emerging segments. Before, retailers discontinued slow-moving items without understanding the unique attributes and what they offer sub-segments. Using Spotfire, we can discuss and find opportunities we couldn’t before.

Flexibility for greater insight

"In the past, it would take me a week to analyze a category, now I do it in a few hours. We look at 104 weeks of data, where most people in our industry look at 4, 13, 26, or 52-week periods. It allows us to shift data views to negate outliers, like hurricanes, valuable for us in Florida because we can tell buyers, “Hey, watch out for this trend. Here's the actual hurricane volume." I don't have to re-pull and reaggregate the data. Spotfire re-aggregates in seconds versus 20 or 30 minutes.

Future

"I think, over the next three years, qualitative analytics and consumer attributing will become vital for figuring out what the consumer is doing versus what they're saying."