Retail Analytics Promise to Tame Information Revolution

September 24, 2010 | Andrew Asch

Today, retailers have more information than ever about their businesses, but making sense of the flood of information coming their way requires software tools to interpret the vast amounts of data gathered by point-of-sales systems and merchandising-management systems.

Retail analytics can free up time for executives and finance departments to make decisions instead of spending time aggregating and parsing often-confusing data, according to the executives of retail analytics companies.

Two of them, Atlanta–based QuantiSense and Denver–based JCB Partners, recently struck agreements to expand their businesses.

In the fourth quarter of this year, QuantiSense will debut its mobile interfaces of its business intelligence software for the iPhone and iPad. Last month, QuantiSense announced that the Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM) selected QuantiSense’s analytic and business intelligence application for NEXCOM’s group of naval installations around the world.

With clients such as PacSun, Burlington Coat Factory and Casual Male XL, QuantiSense’s software warehouses the complex information these companies generate. Then it helps interpret this information in QuantiSense’s Playbook feature. The Playbook offers executives, store buyers and store managers different scenarios on what action they can take to make the best decision on a certain matter, said Jeff Giberstein, chief operating officer of QuantiSense.

JCB Partners announced on Sept. 17 that its Retail Pathways software was selected by IBM to be one of the programs offered by its Cognos 8 business intelligence software. It will make IBM’s Cognos 8 more user-friendly for retailers, said Tom Griggs, director of marketing and communications for JCB Partners.

JCB executives also will participate in the IBM Information Agenda Channels Tiger Team. This think tank will research ways to make analytics and business intelligence software more user-friendly.

With clients such as Columbia Sportswear, JCB Partners’ software collects disparate data from same-store sales, inventory and customer analytics and puts together models and forecasts where retail executives should make their next move.