Smarter decisions in less time

DataShare acts as a bridge between SKUtrak and a CPG’s own reporting tools, analytics platforms and enterprise business systems. From depot and store stock levels through to EPOS data and sales forecasts, DataShare combines the power of SKUtrak’s proprietary retail data model and the Snowflake® data cloud to provide direct access to mission-critical information and insights.

For Colby, the initial use of DataShare suggested Hain Daniels had only scratched the surface of the true value the platform could offer, especially as more metrics became available. "We suddenly found ourselves able to make important decisions much faster than before, saving a lot of time and effort along the way," he continues. “Naturally, we wanted to see what else was possible.”

Making room for insight

As important as all of these things have been for Hain Daniels, SKUtrak’s value goes far beyond just resource optimisation or faster decision-making. Instead, the platform has also given the company a deeper, richer understanding of its sales performance.

“The data itself only gives you part of the story,” says Karl Frestle, Commercial Director for Grocery at Hain Daniels. “And if you spend too long extracting and analysing it, there’s no room for insight. With SKUtrak, we actually have the time to sit down and think about what our information is telling us.”

Understanding the “why” behind Hain Daniels’ performance is a critical consideration for both Frestle and Colby alike. While EPOS data and reports provided by third parties might give them insight into the brand’s day-in, day-out sales figures, that information is typically too shallow to offer much in the way of nuanced insight. SKUtrak, on the other hand, “allows us to infer the probable cause behind different issues”, says Frestle.

“Every day, it gives us an incredibly granular view of what is happening at category level,” adds Colby. “That allows us to compare performance over different periods of time and understand the overall trends. More importantly, it helps us understand why things have happened and what’s likely to happen next, particularly in terms of predicting obstacles like compliance issues.”

Stronger, more collaborative relationships

Frestle highlights one recent situation with promotions as an example of SKUtrak as a strategic enabler. “We had feature space in 300 stores with one of our retail partners, but we weren’t seeing sales uplift in the kind of volumes that we had been anticipating”, he explains. “That was in spite of the fact that we knew, from SKUtrak, that stock was definitely going into stores.”

“Before SKUtrak, we would have had to wait for the promotion to end before we even knew there was a problem,” he continues. “Instead, we were able to conclude that there was an issue with compliance oversight across the stores. That enabled us to have an informed conversation with the retailer as to what was going wrong. That’s incredibly valuable.”