CxVG Owning the Numbers: Data-Driven Decisions

Business Performance and Monetization A recurring theme throughout the discussion was how smaller operators can leverage technology and data tools despite limited resources, especially to help with inventory and vendor management. CEO of Meyer Oil Company Alan Meyer mentioned his successful experience with a transactional data analytics tool from Taiga Data. He has used it for price elasticity analysis, margin analysis, and promotion analysis as well as to analyze new products. Meyer suggested a potential for anonymizing and aggregating data across retailers beyond what is currently available. Sultan shared his journey

trying to leverage industry data from Nielsen IQ and NACS. He also noted challenges he encoun- tered due to his chain’s small size, facing rejection from Amazon and Google. Taylor also highlighted the potential for data con- federation across retailers, proposing the value of a large pool of pseudonymized store data that could be monetized. Anderson shared her experience with inventory analysis that revealed surprising inefficiencies: “We created a days-on-hand report for all of our SKUs in the store...[it] showed us just how many weeks on hand of inventory we had in certain SKUs. And at first we just didn’t believe it.” This data-driven approach helped identify “how much money is sitting in unmoving inventory in the store,” she said, allowing for better inventory management and more productive vendor conversations. Maxey summarized how data-driven inventory management impacts multiple aspects of the busi- ness: “As I follow this through the balance sheet, it’s impacting your working capital. It’s impact- ing your inventory turnover. It’s impacting your sales. It’s favorably impacting your customers so you don’t have out stocks. It’s all the things that we’re chasing.”

relationship with vendors, such as requesting better product marketing, rather than creating orders. He emphasized that retailers shouldn’t fear changing vendor relationships if they understand their own data, bluntly stating, “You know your store.” Eva Strasburger contributed to the inventory dis- cussion by referencing insights from another Vision Group meeting that addressed Aldi’s (a low-cost grocery chain) approach to product selection: “One of the things they like is the limited items in each category. Because they know that if there is one pack of beans on there, that’s already earned its place of its the kind to buy.” She noted that limiting options in categories like water creates space for other, potentially more profitable items.

“ It’s impacting your working capital. It’s impacting your inventory turnover. It’s impacting your sales. It’s favorably impacting your customers so you don’t have out stocks. It’s all the things that we’re chasing. James Maxey , Industry Expert, Trinity University and CxVG Facilitator