As the global economy struggles to regain its strength, retailers are forced to make difficult choices about where they invest their scarce resources and what to expect in return. Should they buy or lease new store locations now that real estate prices have fallen? Or should they invest in technology? How about operational improvements? Employee productivity? Without adequate tools for decision making, picking the path with the best Return on Investment would require major guesswork and more than a little luck. Fortunately that is where Business Intelligence (BI) or Retail Analytics (RA) can make a difference.

BI or Retail Analytics tools ideally address several critical factors – first, they help businesses extract more value from  IT investments they have previously  made. Next, they empower managers with insightful information about their business that is not available through traditional daily or weekly flash reports. Also, a good analytics tool brings together valuable comparative data in an easy-to-use and understand dashboard-style graphical format. The simple graphical view can then be clicked upon for successive “drill-down” levels that expose the detailed data behind the dashboards. For example, Retail Pro dashboards can be personalized to each employee’s liking: sales by store, sales by hour, sales by zip code, margins, average receipt size, sales by department or style, total markdowns, vendors comparisons, stock on hand, etc. In summary, decisions no longer need to depend on guesswork, hope and luck. Managers now have daily access to valuable facts and trends from various parts of their business that can enrich their quest for continual business improvement. 

How to get started with BI? Existing Retail Pro customers have an easy path. Your Retail Pro POS and back-office system already has a wealth of data within it, ready to be transformed through BI into a dashboard format and delivered to your web browser wherever you are. For more information about our Retail Pro Business Intelligence module visit http://www.retailpro.com/solutions/BusinessIntelligence.php and then contact your authorized Retail Pro Business Partner for details.

For those retailers who are not a Retail Pro customer, we encourage you to take a closer look at our very popular retail management software to unlock the full potential of your business. To request more information and let us know if you want us to have an authorized Retail Pro Business Partner contact you right away, please visit us at http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php