By Jim Lewis, CEO Enhanced Retail Solutions LLC

For many years, we have talked to our clients about the significant savings in time that solutions like ours provide. But measuring it can be tricky. Having more time to make smarter decisions rather than building and formatting reports is one aspect. But another aspect provides benefits well beyond time saved. Smarter and faster solutions can uncover opportunities and liabilities you would never have the time to find.

The Bygone Age of Reporting

I think back to my buying days (when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth) and how long it took to pull up reports, get them in a digestible format, and interpret them. It was even tougher on the suppliers because retail POS data was hard to come by and there was a lack of platforms to integrate it on. I thought it would be fun to put together a timeline that shows how milestones over the past 20 years have saved analyst’s time.

Let’s measure it by how long it took to analyze a week’s business. This includes getting data, putting it in a format to review, analyzing the data and drawing conclusions.

• 1990: Dot matrix printed reports with unit and dollar sales, on hand and on order. No calculations. Average analysis time: 22 hours
• 1995: Computer application-based reporting, printable, included generic KPI’s like weeks of supply and sell through. Average analysis time: 18 hours
• 2000: Web-based reporting with expanded KPI’s, exportable to Excel. Average analysis time: 12 hours
• 2005: Custom reporting tools, more sophisticated retailer portals, improved ERP. Average analysis time: 9 hours
• 2010: Broader adoption of databases mixed with Excel and custom reporting. Average analysis time: 6 hours
• 2015: Early generic BI tools, exception and criteria setting rules. ERS introduces Retail Narrative with augmented intelligence. Average analysis time: 4 hours
• 2020: Smarter BI tools, more work and productivity tools developed during the pandemic. Average analysis time: 2 hours
• 2025: AI platforms like Retail Narrative that analyze the business for you and create written summaries. Average analysis time: .5 hours

Accessing Your Era of Analysis

It’s tremendous when you think about it. But keep in mind many companies are still stuck in the 2000 era of using spreadsheets and home-grown tools. The amount of savings going from a 2000 platform to 2025 platform would be dramatic. But even going from 2020 to 2025 with a modern tool can be a game changer.

Last week we released the latest version of our Retail Narrative AI solution. It blends ERS’ broad retail and wholesale expertise with a modern visualization tool and AI Chatbots to create a simple yet highly sophisticated approach to analyzing your business. It creates a summary with specific actionable opportunities and integrates with our tool kit to provide everything you need to act.

Example of summary provided by Retail Narrative. The more data it has, the more useful it can be.