CxVG Owning the Numbers: Data-Driven Decisions

Weather Data and Location Analytics

POS Systems and Technology Integration

Taylor described the Conexxus IoT WoT (Internet of Things, Web of Things) project, which aims to inte- grate various in-store data sources: “You can also scrape a lot of data coming out of your own store, door open, door close. When the customer count in the store was X, did I have a second register open or not?” He suggested this could enable proactive notifications to store staff. Eva Strasburger , president of StrasGlobal, CEO of Compliance Safe, and Vision Group Network co-founder, shared a practical example of real-time tracking data integration: “During COVID, we had quite a few stores across the nation. So we said, how do we base each store on when we should insist they’re using masks because they were at different levels of COVID in different states.” She described how their technology director created a Power BI visualization by linking to government data sources to provide updated regulatory and other guidance.

The visualization capabilities extend beyond basic fi - nancial data to location analytics. Using an example store location, Maxey showed how Tableau provides demographic data and geography to analyze the store’s surrounding area. This analysis revealed higher income demographics with a younger male population in surrounding neighborhoods, despite a wider population dispersion. He demonstrat- ed how such analysis could help with strategic decisions about store locations, merchandising, and marketing. Maxey also showcased how visualization tools can bring data to life through animation, using both a promotional sales trend and a hurricane tracking visualization as examples. Kristina Anderson , chief service officer at Midwest Petroleum Company, shared her experience integrating weather data with historical sales data, noting correlations with snowstorms or tornados. Taylor expanded on the weather data discussion to local events. “Web scraping,” as he called it, can flag weather, traffic and local events to stores so they can be staffed or supplied sufficiently.

Wondering if there is a solution for real-time alerts that operators could tap into, Roy Strasburger , CEO of StrasGlobal, president of Compliance Safe, and Vision Group Network co-founder, questioned if there is a solution available to cross reference live happenings with store traffic. Calling out the usefulness of data in general, Paul Robertson , manager of partnerships and key ini- tiatives at Verifone Inc., emphasized how the pre- sentation demonstrated that “even small operators can utilize tools to analyze data that they already have.” He highlighted the practical applications that retailers like Anderson have at their disposal and alongside their vendors, can work with the data to optimize operations. He affirmed that store-based POS systems may be able to do such analysis and Taylor further suggested that integration with other cloud-based tools, such projections, is possible. Robertson noted that “the cameras in your stores are already counting people. You can take those people counts, ingress, egress statistics, and overlay them into…Tableau…to do that sort of real-time analysis at a headquarters.”

Learn more about the Conexxus Working Groups. IOT Working Group W3C Web of Things