BIC Benefits from Retailer Data Insights

There's no doubt that quickly and accurately unlocking insights from retailer data can yield enormous benefits such as increasing response times, sell-through and forecast accuracy, as well as reducing inventory and out of stocks.

On Nov. 30, 2010, during a CGT Web event, Steve Steutermann, research director, Consumer Products at Gartner, and Mark Schneider, national account manager at BIC, revealed how the manufacturer of stationary products, lighters and shavers moved to an enterprise DSR strategy, allowing it to achieve significant ROI.

--Steutermann kicked off the Web event by revealing the state of the consumer products industry when it comes to data sharing and managing demand variability. "To be demand driven today really requires having demand insights, and the promise of downstream data has been talked about for some time, but it truly has reached its tipping point. The leaders out there have found increasing use of downstream data and are finding unique solutions to age old problems," he explained.

-- Presenting four case studies, Schneider demonstrated how BIC was able to automate data collection efforts, allowing for daily analysis and immediate response to issues; the ability to make better decisions across the enterprise; and gain faster responses in execution by reducing the lag time between decisions and orders hitting the ERP system, among other optimized capabilities. Schneider closed, "We have really been able to become more efficient. We have been able to save time and maximize point of sale data."

-- Britt Fogg, chief technology officer at Shiloh Technologies, was also on hand to offer the solution provider perspective. Fogg first defined a DSR, detailed some of the challenges that come with data and offered suggestions on where to start. "Get started now!" Fogg said. "There is a lot of ROI available here."

To listen to this event in its entirety, click here.