NEWS AND EVENTS
May 4, 2009
4690World and Grocery Outlet win the IBM Retail User Group Innovation Award for their implementation of 4690World's new product, RioGrande
Provide a short description of the project:
Retrieve near real time t-log sales information from 132 stores to centralized database on the IBM iSeries using RIO Grande from 4690World.
Who is the user of the solution?
All stores, Purchasing, Operations, Marketing, IT
What was the primary business challenge?
The primary challenge was to retrieve and process t-log information faster and more reliably from all of their stores. The previous system for retrieving t-logs consisted of transmitting the t-logs via ftp to a loss prevention system that extracted the data and populated a database. Another process would then extract the data from one database and load another for reports and analysis. The process was complex, took hours to complete and required a lot of hand holding to keep running. If they failed to get a t-log, it would take up to four people to get the data, process it and load all the databases.
What are the benefits of the solution?
The benefits of combining RIO Grande and their own applications are numerous:
- More timely information. The process described above was replaced with the near real time retrieval of sales information directly to the database that does the reporting and analysis.
- More accurate information. With 4690World’s help, Grocery Outlet has the flexibility to modify the system to handle new types of transactions. This was a difficult process when dealing with the loss prevention software vendor and multiple databases.
- Reduced administrative costs. Prior to RioGrande, there was one IT person who spent about 25% of his time tracking down t-logs. Now the only reason they don’t get POS sales is if the communication line is down. RioGrande has taken the IT department out of the business of tracking down t-logs.
- RIO Grande works on multiple operating systems and databases. It was the only solution Grocery Outlet found to run directly on the IBM iSeries and communicate with all stores simultaneously.
- Store ordering. Stores can see what’s selling well in their store or other stores before placing a warehouse order. It’s especially useful to compare themselves with other stores. If their neighbor is selling an item that they don’t have in stock then they know they should order it.
- Research transactions. From the screen shot one can see a link for Item Search. Here stores can drill down into the transactions for an item and even pull up a replica of the receipt. Some stores actually show this screen to customers to settle disputes over returned items.
- Item pricing. Occasionally the screen will quickly identify an item that has the wrong price. For instance, there are two stores that are run by a brother and sister. The sister sas that too often she has to call up her brother to let him know he’s losing money on an item.
- Ability to “see” what is happening in stores at the item level. Operations’ uses the screen to see if stores are selling items they should be selling. For instance, most stores have highly predictable sales on items like bananas, milk, butter, eggs, etc. If a store is not selling one of these items, it’s because they are out of the item. Having real time visibility of this information allows them to react the same day.
- Marketing and purchasing departments use the real time information to gauge the efficacy of ads, and to order more of a great item or try to expand the initial successes with like items.
- Future applications: Future uses of the real time POS information include:
a. Publishing customer savings on the public website (www.groceryoutlet.com). Currently they print the amount of money our customers save by shopping at Grocery Outlet on each receipt. With RioGrande they are accumulating the total and will publish the number for each store and for all stores. This is scheduled to go live on May 1.
b. They are also adding a link to the Real Time Sales screen that will allow the stores to add an item to a “wish list”. If they see an item they want, they will be able to easily put it on their wish list and it will automatically be added to their next order.
