At the highest level, organizations turn to Business Intelligence and Data Analytics to make strategic business decisions that can dramatically affect a company’s bottom line and future direction.  A siloed business environment, in terms of both data and/or culture will make any sort of enterprise oversight a difficult, if not impossible task.  Different reporting systems for each type of data, or for each department will mean spending time reconciling differences and untangling conflicting definitions of truth.  Rather than relying on an incomplete perspective of organizational efficiency and efficacy, companies must break down data silos to gain a complete view of their business.  To make decisions based on data, you must first uncover the full story your data has to tell.

Our team had a great time at the 2018 FRANMAC convention in Las Vegas!

FRANMAC is the Taco Bell Franchise Management Advisory Council and their annual convention offers all Taco Bell franchisees the opportunity to come together along with industry operators and vendors to strengthen sales, profits, and the value of franchise owners.

The scope of America’s opioid epidemic is staggering, costing the US economy an estimated $78.5 billion a year and tragically taking an average of 115 lives each day.  There is no doubt that the misuse of and addiction to opioids including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl has become a national crisis.  While a holistic solution remains elusive, pharmacies are turning to data analytics to better track opioid prescriptions and misuses in their retail locations.

It hardly seems possible that Agilence’s fifth annual User Forum has already come and gone.  Attendees have deemed it a success and are already looking forward to next year.  But before we begin planning the 2019 User Forum, here’s a recap of what went down in Savannah, Georgia.

In late 2017, Gartner revealed that about 60% of big data analytics and business intelligence projects fail to move past the preliminary piloting and experimentation phases and will ultimately be abandoned.  Shortly after, one of their industry analysts revealed that they were too conservative in their estimate, and the real metric of failure is closer to 85%.  Another study from McKinsey found that US retailers have captured only 30-40% of the potential value of their data.  Lack of analytical talent, unsupportive leaders, failure to prove utility, and siloed data within companies are most often to blame for the value left on the table.  Getting started with advanced analytics is as much about changing mindsets and culture as it is about acquiring tools and skills.  However, with such a high failure rate, the majority of organizations are attempting to utilize data analytics without the right approach, skills, tactics, and tools.

Used effectively, data can help businesses make faster, more educated decisions that identify opportunities, improve profits, ensure compliance, and boost organization-wide efficiency.  However, in order to reap the rewards of becoming a data-driven organization, businesses require adequate data governance and management.  Businesses of every size struggle to collect, consume, and analyze tremendous volumes of data.  This is the genesis of the data champion.

Consistent technological advancements have disrupted nearly every industry.  Within just a few years, the term digital transformation has evolved from a non-descript buzzword to a necessary business-wide strategy.  With the increasing number of disruptors in the convenience space, C-Stores will need to consistently adopt emerging technologies and holistic digital strategies to hold onto and grow their customer bases.

Today, businesses are drowning in data but starving for actionable insights.  The good news is that most departments are already familiar with some sort of Business Intelligence (BI) or Data Analytics solution with the power to make sense of massive amounts of data.  According to our recent survey with D&D Daily, 55% of respondents reported that their Loss Prevention department utilizes a BI or analytics solution and 48% reported that Operations uses this type of solution.  Other responses include Finance (35%), Marketing (29%), and HR (10%).  The bad news is that simply using a solution within a department isn’t enough to deliver enterprise-wide insights. 

Creating an omnichannel customer experience has been a priority in retail for years.  The goal of an omnichannel strategy is to improve customer experience by tying together various communication channels to create one unified, flexible customer experience.  As advancing technologies continue to create more and more communication channels like smart phones, mobile apps, augmented reality, virtual reality, and chat bots, a unified customer experience isn’t exclusively a retail issue.  Every industry is discovering that buyers are most comfortable in a connected world, buying from and interacting with brands how they want and when they want.  In fact, many industries like restaurants, grocery stores, and pharmacies are well on their way to developing omnichannel strategies.  In some cases, organizations in other industries have even outpaced retail organizations to create effective omnichannel customer experiences.

MOUNT LAUREL, NJ - July 19, 2018 – Agilence, Inc., the leading provider of vertical-focused analytics solutions to the retail, grocery, pharmacy, and restaurant industries, today announced the addition of Brian Harvell as Chief Technology Officer.  This key hire brings a wealth of experience and strategic expertise as Agilence continues their acceleration into the next stage of growth.