Record Attendance at NRF
More than 16,000 people from the retail industry gathered Jan. 14-17 in New York City for the National Retail Federation’s 96th Annual Convention and EXPO. This record-breaking attendance included participants from all over the world and from every retail channel: online, bricks and mortar, department and specialty, apparel, and a surprisingly large contingent from grocery.
The buzz at the conference? Retail technology. More and more retailers are seeing technology as a means of competing strongly. A smaller retailer may not be able to beat a Wal-Mart or Target on economy of scale, but it can still drive revenue, protect margins and earn customer loyalty with optimized merchandise plans, assortments, pricing and promotions. Because precision pricing and merchandising require powerful demand forecasting and predictive analytics, many retailers came to the “Big Show” to see the latest offerings.
“There was incredible interest in SAS retail business solutions, which are infused with the forecasting, optimization, data mining and analytics retailers are hungry for,” says Alexi Sarnevitz, Senior Director of Global Retail Strategy at SAS. “Users were excited about our ability to deliver significant value from our functionality, usability and the integration of our SAS platform analytics with our SAS retail solutions.”
Trends from NRF
Conversations with conference participants, press and leading industry analysts revealed several prevalent trends, all of which require analytics for a better understanding of what’s happening in the business:
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The industry is becoming more and more customer-centric, so retailers have a growing need for solutions that effectively tailor their offers to local markets and consumer-specific needs.
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Retail is becoming increasingly global, with a major consolidation taking place as larger chains continue to grow and drive success by leveraging the latest technologies and best practices.
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The desire for analytics from a scalable, common platform is growing. Companies want a single version of the truth and need an intelligent business performance management solution that sorts through massive amounts of data and turns it into actionable information, flagging what’s most important.
Stop guessing, start knowing
More than 75 retailers from around the world sought out SAS to learn more about its retail solutions. The show also attracted numerous C-level retail officers, who had their top business initiatives in mind for the 2007 sales year. “We had many more senior executives visit with us [than last year]. They were all looking to begin or expand their relationship with SAS,” says Gene Gsell, General Manager of the US retail business unit.
At the event, SAS experts delivered demonstrations on:
More than 100 people attended the SAS-sponsored “BIG !deas” session on Jan. 15, which featured Tween Brands’ Vice President of IT Solutions and Delivery Process Engineering Roy Deegan. Tween Brands, a longtime customer and strategic partner of SAS, presented a case study highlighting how SAS has helped Tween turn data into actionable intelligence.
“We had a full house during Roy Deegan’s Tween Brands presentation,” says Sarnevitz. “Participants wanted to see how Tween is evolving their planning and other processes using SAS capabilities.”
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