The Real Deal: Karl Waldman on The Sea of Data

This continues a new set of posts. Guest columns from practitioners and bloggers I respect. The category - The Real Deal describes them well.

Karl Waldman has been building and deploying decision support systems for over 20 years.  Now in his second stint at i2 he has helped clients in retail, CPG, auto and other industries. He co-founded and was a board member at OATSystems, an RFID company. There he led the services team in deployments in more than a dozen countries – from factories in China, stores in Bahrain and UK to boardrooms in the US.

We live in LARTEs (Location Aware, Real Time Enterprises). Here are Karl's thoughts on the sea of data we are drowning in. Water, water everywhere – but not filtered enough to drink.

“Companies are generating large data volumes that will get worse as more data becomes available thru point of sale (POS), GPS, RFID and sensor-networks. This creates “unresolved opportunities” that companies can use to improve their business. Two examples:

• Demand:      By analyzing the POS data, you can sell more of your product. Using  POS data, a client was able to increase sales by targeting the inventory to the correct areas of the country. They were also able to reduce channel inventory by 13 weeks and      improve the category profitability for both them and the retailer significantly.  

• Supply.      By geographically mapping inventory flows a client was able to remove 15 days of lead-time and inventory. That represent quite an opportunity since they are in the fashion industry and 15 days is a decent percentage of their season. Lead times are not static, make them visible and a part of your business review.

Some suggestions:

1) Consider organizing and controlling your data with an Enterprise Master Data Management tool.  Making the data consistent makes it easier to identify areas to improve.

2) Add POS data to your demand model – this action alone can help you reduce inventories and increase sales.

3) Reexamine your software implementations more than a year old. Your business has changed and there are revenue and/or cost savings opportunities available. Make sure you are using POS data and the latest lead-times.

4) If you considering an upgrade, take the opportunity to examine the data and business processes. Most of the value is in understanding and implementing the business changes represented in your data, not in just refreshing the technology.”

Karl can be reached at [email protected]