Running a multi-site retail business, such as a franchise network, hospitality group or eCommerce alongside brick and mortar sites, can be a real challenge. Keeping on top of sales data, customer behaviour, staff performance, and a swag of important metrics is hard enough – try doing it across several different locations. That's where Business Intelligence (BI) tools come in.
In this article, we'll explore the top benefits of BI reporting for multi-site retailers and how it can help you make better decisions, boost efficiency, and increase your bottom line. Let’s dive in. But first…
What is Business Intelligence?
In simple terms, Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of techniques and tools that businesses use to make sense of their data. The aim is to give businesses a clear picture of their operations so they can make better-informed decisions.
Multi-site retail businesses, such as franchises, hotels or restaurant groups, can benefit from BI because it helps turn data from different locations into useful and easy to understand insights, allowing them to optimise operations and boost profits.
Better Decision Making with PowerBI Reporting
With BI tools like Microsoft PowerBI , retailers can use data on customer behaviour, sales, and other important metrics to make smarter decisions about everything from inventory management to marketing strategies. PowerBI makes it easy to visualise and analyse data from multiple sources, giving you a complete picture of your business. And, if your business is already in the Microsoft Office365 ecosystem, it seamlessly integrates into other software.
BI technology also allows you to aggregate and consolidate data from different locations, giving you a better understanding of your business as a whole, and the ability to compare and benchmark performance across different sites. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition, right?
Increased Efficiency with BI
One of the best things about BI is that it automates many routine (boring?!) tasks, such as data collection, transformation and analysis, freeing up time for more valuable and strategic efforts. With BI, you can collect and analyse data quickly and easily, saving time and resources. There's also the possibility to extend the data and insights into actionable outcomes, like data metrics that drive events via integrated services.
It’s worthwhile for every retailer to chat with a digital consultant about how you might implement solutions like PowerBI to view and act on business data analytics .
Deeper Customer Insights with BI
BI can help retailers gain a deeper understanding of their customers, including their demographics, preferences, psychographics and buying habits. Think geo mapping data sets to understand where your customers are. Or finding ways to service them better, from store locations to route optimisation in logistics.
BI also enables segmentation of customers. And if you’re a retailer, you now how important this is! The information can be used to analyse consumer behaviour and personalise services to yield the best customer lifetime value. Personalised marketing campaigns, including advertising, remarketing and eDMs, will all improve the customer experience .
Better Inventory Management with BI
By tracking sales data and customer behaviour, retailers can optimise their inventory levels, reducing stockouts and excess inventory. All this helps to drive a leaner, just in-time approach and keep the balance sheet clean. It also helps businesses to better forecast and take greater advantage in foreign exchange markets with their raw materials and stock purchasing.
By using BI to manage inventory, businesses can quickly and accurately see stock availability for online customers and retail stores. This is so important when setting expectations with customers about stock availability (particularly when placed on back-order) and timing in delivery to door.
Boosting Revenue and Profits with BI
Retailers can use BI to identify new revenue opportunities and optimise pricing strategies. With BI, you can get a better grasp of your business and benchmark performance across different locations, helping you ramp up revenue and profits.
Benchmarking performance helps store managers and franchisees to better understand where their gaps and opportunities are to enhance and perform like the best performers in the network or organisation. It also provides a great learning opportunity, which the Head Office or Franchisor can use to teach and support new or struggling locations.
When it comes to sales forecasting, BI can help you proactively manage revenue and define key opportunities. With detailed customer-level data, segmentation, and geo-overlays, you can improve sales performance. BI also helps store managers understand staff performance, leading to improved efficiency, revenue, and profits.
Improved Operations with BI
With PowerBI's connected ecosystem, you can automate operations in connected solutions, increasing efficiency, and saving time and resources. This can be achieved by leveraging APIs and integrated platforms on both the data ingestion as well as the data outputs and metrics that will drive connected events.
Some examples of this action include:
- Incorporating Google Analytics (make sure you’re across GA4!) for growth marketing and advertising performance.
- Integration into a CRM (such as HubSpot) to create a single view of customers across all digital channels.
- Integration into inventory management to drive better stock and purchase forecasting, as well as inventory optimisation and true GP% on sold goods.
Invest in a Game-Changing Business Intelligence Tool
BI reporting can be a real game-changer for multi-site retailers. With BI, you can analyse data from multiple sources and see it all in one place. (Who doesn’t love a beautiful dashboard with everything at your fingertips). If you're ready to take your business to the next level with BI, get in touch with our digital experts today.
