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Integrated Data Provides Higher Quality Insights

Combining two or more sources such as retailer POS and manufacturer shipping data could be key to getting the clear picture you need.

An integrated data source is more valuable than the sum of its parts.

The benefit of combining two or more data sources into a single one to create analyses, charts, and presentations is immediately evident in the improved quality of information and insights derived.

Working together, manufacturers and retailers can determine how sales demand measures up to actual sales or how well marketing programs perform in a specific consumer demographic. The fact is quality analysis and collaborative planning cannot be accomplished without looking at data in an integrated manner.

Example: Retailer POS and Manufacturer Shipment Data

Let’s say that a retailer and manufacturer want to do a sell-through analysis on recent promotional events. This can be accomplished by combining retailer POS data with manufacturer shipment data as shown below:

In this example, the manufacturer of the “Avalon” brand and the retailer “Supermart” looked at 5 recent promotional events for the Avalon 32 OZ product. By comparing POS and shipment data, it’s clear that the promotion for the week 1/18/03 was the most efficient and that the one during 12/14/02 performed the poorest. From here, other analyses such as trade promotional payment administration and retail inventory control can be done.

Data Integration Tips

The term data integration is used a lot, but what does it really mean? It’s useful to look at some of the characteristics of an integrated data source. A truly integrated data source should:

  • Map names from two or more different data sources to a user-friendly name for all dimensions including categories, segments, geographies, products, and measures
  • Roll up values of items that have different names in different data sources
  • Combine any type of data including POS, shipment, planogram, price surveys, ad diaries AND syndicated data

Data Integration is key to getting the most out of your data. In addition, data integration benefits the organization by reducing the enormous cost of overloaded networks, duplicate efforts, and incompatible data.

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