MIAMISBURG, Ohio —
Teradata Corporation (NYSE:
TDC) announced today it is extending its leadership in
enterprise data warehousing (EDW) with the introduction of an enterprise demand signal repository (DSR) for consumer product companies and other manufacturing organizations that sell directly to retailers.
The new Teradata DSR solution analyzes
point-of-sale (POS) data, revealing previously unknown patterns in consumer demand, multi-channel inventory sell-through, promotion optimization and product profitability by SKU (
stock-keeping unit) by store. The solution includes new partnerships with
Shiloh Technologies and
Relational Solutions, both leaders in demand data analytics.
AMR Research Analyst Lora Cecere said, "While traditional processes use orders and shipments as the proxy to calculate market share, drive demand, and calculate replenishment, we know that there are three inherent issues. The signal is old, with an average two-week latency from when the data is entered at the point of purchase. True demand is understated — the average out of stock is seven to eight percent. The retailer's perpetual inventory signal is inaccurate," in the paper, "Advances in Demand Signal Repositories for Consumer Products," issued in November, 2007.
Deployment of demand signal repositories and the use of downstream data is growing among consumer products companies. Analyzing and quickly acting on POS data can have a profound impact on consumer products, high-tech and life sciences companies at both top-line revenue and bottom-line profit through:
- Greater on-shelf availability
- Better new product introduction and life cycles
- More efficient supply chain
- More effective and efficient promotions
- Improved accuracy of customer profit and loss statements
This combination of the leading data warehouse provider and leading demand data analytics providers gives consumer products manufacturers the decision support platform needed to analyze POS data and reveal previously unknown patterns in consumer demand. Teradata provides the infrastructure and the tools to create an enterprise view of multiple customer POS streams integrated with rich internal data sources. Teradata also provides the most robust analytics available across the enterprise.
Through the joint selling agreements with Shiloh Technologies and Relational Solutions, customers can choose from a full suite of complementary tools, applications and software products optimized for Teradata.
"The ability to drive decision making across the corporate enterprise is the motivating factor for an effective demand signal repository. POSmart is an award-winning, multi-retailer demand signal repository for large consumer goods organizations. POSmart's unique ability to process and harmonize large volumes of disparate retailer POS transactions and harmonize it with ERP and syndicated data within Teradata carries a high value proposition. The POSmart and Teradata solution allows our customers to pinpoint stock-outs and low inventory levels across all retail accounts, and improve sales with built-in category management and supply chain analytics," said Relational Solutions Inc. Chief Operating Officer Janet Dorenkott.
Relational Solutions Inc. offers a flexible data-model based integration tool called
POSmart that can consolidate highly granular store level data across multiple retailers. Both POSmart and the RSI Blue Sky Portal feature dynamic reporting capabilities where users can create customized reports. Report information can be represented graphically and exported in a choice of Microsoft formats. Many of the company's key customers are consumer products and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
"Shiloh allows suppliers to integrate and harmonize data from retailers, third parties and internal systems in addition to providing end users with powerful reporting and analytical tools. Suppliers who hope to have an influential voice at the shelf must realize efficiencies with data integration, daily reporting, and user-defined exception alerts so they can focus their time on analytics that help them grow their business. With retailers' increased focus on store-level consumer analysis, suppliers have to be able to quickly provide consumer demographic analysis at the item store level," said Lisa Bohn, President and CEO of Shiloh Technologies. "We are particularly excited about the partnership with Teradata because of a shared philosophy on keeping data at the item/store/day level with no predefined aggregates or cubes. Thus the end user is empowered with maximum flexibility in how to look at the data."
Shiloh is an award-winning platform used by more Wal-Mart suppliers than any other third-party solution. Shiloh's proprietary database structure was designed to handle data from disparate sources as well as multiple retailers, including a powerful suite of tools specifically designed around the complex data from Retail Link.
"The combination of manufacturer and retailer data allows for deep insights that overcome a significant problem — the inability to understand the demand for a product. These insights are a golden key, capable of unlocking the potential to transform a company's supply chain into a demand-driven supply network. Absolutely this is what needs to be done," said Camille P. Schuster, professor of marketing at California State University San Marcos and co-author of the book, "The Consumer...or Else!"
AMR Research estimated that spending per consumer products company on demand signal repository strategies in 2007 averaged nearly $6 million, and projected spending this year would increase nearly 18 percent. (
AMR Research; Advances in Demand Signal Repositories for Consumer Products, November 2007.)
"Some customers are attempting to use point solutions to achieve the benefits of a demand signal repository. While they can achieve some benefits for any one retailer, they can not integrate internal data and analytics across multiple retailers. We have addressed that through these two partnerships," said Keith Henry, vice president for
manufacturing global industry solutions for Teradata. "Teradata's capability in the Demand Signal Repository space extends the
capability of point solutions with a foundation of integration across multiple sources of demand data. We are providing an end-to-end solution for consumer products companies."
The Teradata demand signal repository is composed of four components:
- Teradata Data Warehouse — the repository for large volumes of demand data
- Manufacturing Logical Data Model — a robust conceptual architecture that describes data relationships and maps out demand data
- Analytics — applications for analyzing and presenting data from new partners Shiloh Technologies and Relational Solutions
- Integration — between data sources connected to the demand signal repository and operational applications
The announcements today are the first public step in Teradata's course of action in the demand signal repository market. Shiloh Technologies and Relational Solutions are already taking steps to port their respective applications to Teradata, and the company is working on modifications to its Manufacturing Logical Data Model to provide a more comprehensive information roadmap for the enterprise data warehouse.
"In-store execution is where it all comes together. With the power of data in a demand-driven supply network, companies can execute targeted marketing efforts and address the concurrent long-standing challenges of out-of-stock situations and excess inventory," Henry said.
About Teradata
Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC) is the world's largest company focused on raising intelligence through data warehousing and enterprise analytics. Teradata is in more than 60 countries and on the web at
www.teradata.com.
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Teradata is a trademark or registered trademark of Teradata Corporation in the United States and other countries.
