Brands and retailers generate enormous amounts of data each day, ranging from sales information through to where products are in the supply chain, who is buying them, when and where.

Billions of rows of data are available on a daily basis to brands, but many struggle with the complexity of that data, especially during busy shopping seasons.

It is therefore necessary to make data accessible to all; from account managers, to supply chain planners through to the board.

Only by visualising data can accurate decisions that have an impact from the supply chain to the supermarket shelves be made.

Using data, brands can apply the same benefits of e-commerce to the supermarket aisles, delivering better sales, margins and profits in the competitive, dynamic and evolving grocery and FMCG market.

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It also allows FMCG brands to use data insights to build better relationships with their customers.

So, what do brands need to do to weave data into the fabric of their decision-making and reap the benefits delivered by more accurate decisions?

Size and speed

To explore, segment, compare and interact with their data, brands need to query a large amount of data.

This gives them an understanding of which promotions and pricing strategies will create the most impact on the FMCGs’ sales goals, whether that’s market share or increased margins.

More than this, in today’s highly competitive FMCG world, it’s incredibly important that brands can understand and analyse their data as quickly as possible to gain the greatest advantage.

The unprecedented growth in the amount of data retailers and suppliers have access to has made it difficult for many technologies to cope in a responsive way.

They need the right tool for the job and standard databases do not provide the power and speed required.

Scaling new heights

Another critical success factor for implementing data analytics is scalability.

Atheon Analytics works with EXASOL, who has always majored on scalability, which means that granular analysis can be carried out when necessary, including looking at performance per product in each individual store, no matter what the data volume.

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It is important that whatever tools you implement will see you through growth, new innovations and into the future.

Humanise your data with visual analytics

Once your data is in a fast database, you need to be able to visualise it to make sense of it. It’s called visual analytics.

Put simply, visual analytics involves turning numbers into pictures that anyone in the organisation can access, understand and interact with to harvest rich insight from vast data sources.

The science comes into its own when humans need to analyse information so huge and complex that it is impossible to process in its raw format.

Visual analytics tools and techniques create an interactive view of data that reveals the patterns within it, enabling everyone to become researchers and analysts.

The technology brings together computer science, information visualisation, cognitive and perceptual sciences, interactive design, graphic design, and social sciences.

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More than this, it enables a new breed of storyteller to communicate facts in an incredibly accessible, understandable way.

Thanks to the fall in the cost of computing, gathering data is affordable, but there is no point in storing it and not doing anything with it.

The volume and complexity of data has made it increasingly difficult to get meaningful insights at the right speed.

Businesses fully understand the benefits and value of data analytics.

Using visual analytics breaks down the barriers between you and your data – unlocking its full value by allowing every person in your business to instantly see, understand and act on the patterns that lie within it. You need the right tools to analyse data and turn it into value fast.

Sourced by Guy Cuthbert, managing director, Atheon Analytics