Business Tip 7
Case Study - Creating Virtual Data Sources to Grow Your Bottom Line

Top Line
Using On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) technology, it is possible to create virtual data sources that combine dissimilar data types for specific business uses. Using XP3, a customer recently set up a virtual data cube designed to validate Plan-o-Grams against syndicated sales data.

Situation
A major manufacturer had been manually validating Plan-O-Grams against historical sales data. The validation process compared actual sales in a certain market against the retailer shelf-set to determine if the 'right' assortment was in place. This was a time-intensive process that counted on the salesperson checking facings in a Plan-o-Gram spreadsheet against sales data from a syndicated supplier.

Interactive Edge was approached to see if there was a more efficient way to validate these Plan-o-Grams.

Goals
Success in this initiative was defined as the ability to systematically compare retailer-specific Plan-o-Grams with syndicated sales data to perform the following analyses:

• Identify top selling items in the market that were not in the shelf set
  
  
• Identify items in the shelf set that did not represent the needs of the market
  
  
• Virtually apply multiple Plan-o-Grams in a given market to determine the best fitting standard shelf set

Action Taken
At first glance, the scenario seemed impossible. How could a system combine two different data sources that have differing dimensions? In this case, the Plan-o-Gram data contained products, time periods, specific measures and different shelf sets, while the sales data contained products, time periods, specific measures and different geographies. The key to success was the ability to turn these two separate three-dimensional data sources into a single four-dimensional data source.

Interactive Edge used XP3 to load both types of data into Microsoft Analysis Services and, using the tool's ability to virtualize dimensions, created a single merged cube that allowed the end users to compare any Plan-o-Gram to any retailer. Based on this capability, XP3 Suite was also able to create dependant measures such as "Dollars per Facing," as well as automatically identify products that sell in the market but are not present in the Plan-o-Gram.

Key Benefits

• Using XP3's ability to harness the power of Microsoft Analysis Services, the manufacturer was able to quickly and easily do all the 'heavy lifting' needed to truly integrate Plan-o-Gram data with Syndicated Sales data.
  
  
• Because the presentation tools of XP3 allow Microsoft PowerPoint to connect directly to data in Microsoft Analysis Services, the development of scorecards and validation tools (such as 'Top 10 Items Not in the Shelf-set') was also quick and easy.
  
  
• Most important, though, was the fact that the customer could now apply a consistent Plan-o-Gram validation methodology to all its products and retailers on a regular and automated basis.

The bottom line results were both improved efficiency -- by eliminating a lot of manual work -- and effectiveness -- by bringing insights to light that were previously impossible to attain.

The data, products and accounts depicted in this example are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual data, products or accounts is purely coincidental.