John Squire, CEO Using data in the merchandising function of retail is not new. What has radically changed is the amount of data that can and should be utilized to make both day-to-day and long-term strategic decisions. “There is unlimited cross-organization data that must be used in perfect synchronicity, in order to take proactive measures to meet retail’s ever changing demands,” says John Squire, CEO, DynamicAction. Here is where CIOs struggle—they have immense data that must be consolidated from every business function, and yet must make decisions and drive results in quick succession. In order to achieve this, they must blend people, process and technology in the right proportion—thus stimulating a force that empowers a shift to a data-driven organization with “one source of truth" across various departments and data sets. “DynamicAction applies thousands of proprietary retail algorithms across departments to pinpoint what is impacting merchandising efforts,” says Squire. The efficacy of this algorithm allows retailers to make reliable strategic decisions to move forward in their journey.
“DynamicAction ensures optimization of strategies, targets, tactics and results, while also allowing merchant teams to retain the financial impact projections of each potential action at their fingertips. This is made possible with DynamicAction’s implemented algorithms. “Merchants can evaluate their sales and know when rates are declining and whether that is due to scathing customer reviews or out-of-stock issues,” says Squire. Moreover, DynamicAction also provides an in depth illustration around the lost revenue and profit, helping retailers remain vigilant for the next course of action.
In a nutshell, DynamicAction is a system that offers one source of truth instantly connecting data from every part of the organization—merchandising, customers, marketing, operations, returns and finance—across all channels.“DynamicAction instantly identifies for retailers the most critical issues by analyzing the broadest pool of data; then prioritizing the most important opportunities for teams to take to increase sales and profits,” highlights Squire.
There’s a new way to run retail organizations - with a clear understanding of data, and immediate actions to improve performance. Bottom line: We’ve Moneyballed retail
Rather than traditional KPIs, retailers with connected and actionable data are able to answer the complex questions that will truly drive their business i.e., which overstocked products require increased exposure rather than a price reduction?
Knowing the significance of analytics, REVOLVE (leading online fashion retailer) tapped DynamicAction to bring the science of retail into its merchandising. In a single week, DynamicAction identified more than $2 million worth of inventory that had minimal exposure online, receiving only a handful of customer views resulting in overstocks and low sell-through rates. Based on DynamicAction’s recommendations, REVOLVE increased product views by 15 percent per week over a four-week period, resulting in a 20 percent increase in inventory sell-through for products with no recent sales. This led to nearly 60 percent improvement in return on capital for overstocked products. “DynamicAction allows us to better guide the business at a strategic level, while simultaneously providing us with key action items that need to be addressed to keep growing the health and revenue of our organization,” says David Pujades, COO, REVOLVE
For driving such results, retail’s current scenario mandates that organizations embrace new trends and technologies, like analytics and cloud-based software. “There’s a new way to run retail organizations - with a clear understanding of data, and immediate actions to improve performance. Bottom line: We’ve Moneyballed retail. And the most forward– thinking retailers recognize that this is the way to become retail champions,” says Squire. For contribution in the coming year, DynamicAction continues to craft collaboration tools for merchants and automated engines that can benefit from broader sets of highly refined data. “We see a retail world that will embrace more data science and automation to enable the very best artists of retail to flourish in an environment where stores never close and customers are always connected,” concludes Squire.
