Jeff Huckaby
Global Segment Director, Retail and Consumer Goods, Tableau
Twitter: @huck5
Email: jhuckaby@tableau.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhuckaby
Thank you for attending
Out of the 2018 NRF Top 100:
85% are customers
All top 25 retailers are customers
Over 8,000 retail and consumer
goods companies around the
world
This exhibitor big ideas session is
developed, produced, and sponsored by
2019 Retail Analytics Trends
1. Customer metrics take focus
2. Artificial intelligence goes to work across the
organization, providing tangible business value
3. Daily Flash Sales reporting finally evolves
4. 5G networks allow retailers to take a leap forward
5. Inventory awareness is taken to new levels
Read the full trends at
Tableau.com/Retail
An encyclopedia,
allowed users to view
data at different levels of
organizational hierarchy
Easily accessible for
CFA staff (but, zero data
security)
Incredibly complicated,
time-consuming process
to update data each
month
Helped us make decisions around
which items should be maintained,
enhanced, promoted or deleted
Easily accessible for CFA staff
(saved and distributed as a PDF)
Painful to produce in MS Access
(used to take several weeks)
Profit Contribution $ vs Menu Mix %
Printed: Thursday, April 29, 2010
Contains a summary
of the prior year’s
performance along
with 10yrs of trends
Published as
printable PDF file on
our internal intranet
Expensive and
inefficient process
Simple, clean view
into prior week
performance
All CFA staff
members receive a
weekly subscription
Data refreshes on a
schedule, up-to-date
information is always
available online
Similar view with
detailed breakout by
daypart
Easily accessible for
CFA staff (via
Tableau Server)
Data refreshes on a
schedule, up-to-date
information is always
available online
Tracks 12 KPIs that
matter to top executives
Easily accessible via
Tableau Server
Data refreshes on a
schedule, up-to-date
information is always
available online
Uses PMIX data to make
recommendations on how to
stock shelves/refrigerator
Easily accessible for CFA staff
(via Tableau Server)
Data refreshes on a schedule,
up-to-date information is
always available online
• The technology we’re using today allows us to
build/modify/update engaging
reports/dashboards faster than ever before.
Learnings
• Interactivity matters.
• Democratization of data requires data
governance.
• Important to foster a community of analysts
who share tips/tricks/best practices.
Notas del editor
Hi, my name is Karen Hinson. I work for CFA in Atlanta, GA. I am a Lead Analyst focused on performance reporting (measuring the health of the business and reporting on metrics like sales and profits, transaction count and check average). Today I’d like to share how visual analytics have helped us move toward becoming a data-driven culture.
In a world where everyone has access to the same data, there is a balance of power. *click*
But in the real world… there is information asymmetry. One company/business often has access to more/superior information than another and when that happens, the scales are tipped in their favor. *click*
Companies that leverage data to make better, faster decisions have a major advantage in the marketplace. Implementing Tableau has helped us democratize data and generate better insights.
You probably wouldn’t think of CFA as a “data-driven” company.
The companies pictured here probably come to mind. These companies have figured out how to use data to disrupt their industries… but what about the rest of us?
CNBC article 12/4/18
Even fast food chains can leverage data to get ahead!
Earlier I mentioned a “data-driven” culture. What do I mean by “data-driven culture?”
Getting the right data… to the right people… at the right time
And ideally, we want to provide more than just raw data. We want to translate the data into meaningful insights for the business.
To highlight how far we’ve come over the past few years, I’d like to spend a few minutes giving you an idea of what performance reporting at CFA was like several years ago.
Our primary BI tools were MS Excel and Access. *click*
Here’s an example of an Access database analysts at CFA began producing each month back in 1999. This database was known as “EIS” (Executive Information System).
In 1999, this was a gamechanger! It was a powerful tool that contained detailed financial data and allowed users to view & summarize information at different levels of the organization (for example, data could be “rolled up” to the chain, yet users could also “drill down” to view data by region, service team, operator team or restaurant). *click*
We produced EIS monthly for over 15 years! And you can see… aside from adding more data, it didn’t change much at all. This database was quick & easy to use. There was a wide audience who relied on EIS for information every month (including Business and Financial Consultants and even members of our senior leadership). However, as you can probably imagine, there was a complicated, time-consuming process in place to refresh and load EIS each month. It involved running > a dozen Business Objects queries and refreshing the data took at least a full day.
So… did EIS get the right data and insights to the right people at the right time? *click*
In some ways, yes. The database contained tons of data points and kept field staff from having to run BO queries. Yet, it was rich in data/poor in insights. *click*
Once/month when data was refreshed, we would send an email to our distribution list, which would prompt EIS users to click an icon on their desktop (initiating a script that would load the latest version of EIS on their desktop). So it was easy for staff members to access, but there was no security around it (which could have been problematic with a giant database that contained highly sensitive information). *click*
The biggest problem with providing information this way was the manual, slow process each month. Loading new information into EIS was so complicated, it was easy to make mistakes and prone to delays.
Here’s another example to illustrate what performance reporting looked like at CFA 10yrs ago.
We produce a Menu Evaluation report each year. Historically, it was produced in MS Access. For each menu category (ie. Entrees, Sides, Beverages), we look at how specific items performed during the year. *click*
The output is a series of graphs with these four quadrants (items with a high profit margin and high sales are “stars,” while items that aren’t selling very well and don’t contribute as much in terms of profit are “dogs.”
So… using MS Access to publish this Menu Evaluation report, how did we do in terms of getting the right data to the right people at the right time? *click*
The data and insights in this report has always been very helpful for the business. We use these graphs to make decisions around which items should be maintained, enhanced, promoted or deleted. *click*
Back in the day, this report was published as a PDF file and emailed to a distribution list (so those who needed the information had easy access to it). However, this was a static report (with no interactivity). *click*
And one big downside was the amount of time spent gathering the data, working in the Access DB, creating the graphs for each category. *click*
Up in the top right corner of the PDF, you can see the date on this report (which provides data for the year-ending 2009). *click*
This report was published in April of 2010. That’s an extremely long time to wait for information/insights.
One final example from our past.
This is the cover of an old Annual Performance Report. Historically, producing this report was a major undertaking for my team.
*click*
Every year, people look forward to receiving this report. It’s always very well-done. There are roughly 30-40 pages of graphs. It’s great for comparing the prior year against the last 10 years across many different financial metrics. *click*
As soon as this is ready, we publish a PDF version on our intranet so any staff member or operator can download and print the file. *click*
However, for years and years, we would spend almost a month pulling the data from different systems and preparing the data in Excel and Access to send “final numbers” to a contractor (who would create tables and graphs one page at a time using Adobe Illustrator). The entire process was expensive and inefficient.
Making sense of (and exploring) our data is much faster today thanks to tools like Tableau and Alteryx. We are able to automate the steps necessary to generate reports/update dashboards, getting information in the hands of the people who need it when they need it.
Several years ago, we built a Tableau EIS dashboard that replaced the old MS Access database. The Tableau dashboard contains the same information with several additional views.
The old Access DB did not contain any graphs or trend lines. Here you see sales, profit & COGS trends for the chain in one of the views in our Tableau DB. Users can change the filters across the top of the view to update all these graphs for a specific region, service team, market or restaurant.
On another view within this dashboard, users can select a restaurant and see where that restaurant ranks against its peers on dozens of measures.
Everything is interactive. *click* If I hover over the yellow line, I see a tooltip with more information.
We are no longer producing our Menu Evaluation report in MS Access. Today we have a Menu Evaluation dashboard online that tells the story of our menu.
A few years ago, I built the entire APR in Tableau (automating the process). It now takes a fraction of the time and looks just as amazing.
In addition, to the PDF version, the entire report is also now stored on our Tableau Server where several views are interactive.
The time we (analysts) have saved through automation and more efficient work, we have been able to put toward developing new content for the business.
This particular workbook displays sales change, transaction count and check average change for the prior week & has become the most popular dashboard on our server.
This dashboard has increased business acumen across the business. It not only provides useful information, but the data is presented in a way people find engaging and it instantly makes sense. *click*
It’s accessible online (via Tableau Server), and every single CFA staff member receives a weekly subscription email. *click*
The dashboard is entirely automated (and data refreshes automatically every single day).
P6BD was so well-received, I created a similar view broken out by daypart. *click*
This dashboard displays sales, transaction count and check average growth for each daypart for the prior 6 business days. *click*
There are filters across the top that allow users to view the data for malls or free-standing restaurants or for a specific region/service team/operator team/market. *click*
This is easily accessible (published online on our Tableau Server). *click*
And data is kept up-to-date (without anyone having to “update” anything behind the scenes).
This dashboard was built for our Executive Committee and BOD and is used during their monthly meetings to help the conversation stay focused on measures that matter and to highlight key information.
I was able to customize this dashboard for our COO (he specified exactly which measures he wanted to see), and I built this for him in Tableau. *click*
This is published online and has gained traction beyond just our executive committee. *click*
Always displays the most up-to-date information. *click*
One of my co-workers created this dashboard. It provides product mix data for a given restaurant (how many specific items are sold during breakfast, lunch and dinner) for the purpose of space optimization and storage.
Why is this important? You may have been in a CFA that looked something like this during a busy lunch hour.
Or perhaps you’ve seen lines like this in our drive-thru.
When you have customers waiting on you, it sure helps to have organization & all the necessary supplies right where you need them.
The idea behind the Space Optimization dashboard is simple…
We have limited space behind the front counter. Here you see what we call our “drive-thru cockpit.”
Instead of haphazardly storing all sorts of boxes (representing a random variety of cups) up there like you see in this photo…
Let’s use the data we have to store the appropriate amount of cups in each size (based on how many small, medium and large drinks we sell)!
Consultants who make operator visits are able to select a restaurant from this dashboard and this section gives them an idea of how many small, medium and large cups are used each day (recommending how much space should be allocated to each cup size). *click*
Similarly, we also want to optimize storage in the small refrigerators (called low-boys) underneath our front counter. In this section, it’s easy to see which items we sell the most of during breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The idea is to stock the fridge with items that are needed during each shift.
This is a great example of getting the right data to the right people at the right time. *click*
Consultants are able to use this dashboard to pull up specific restaurant data in the field as they meet with operators. *click*
All it takes is an internet connection. *click*
And they can trust the data is current and up-to-date.
I have one last dashboard to share with you.
Dashboards like this one help our consultants put growth in perspective for Operators. CLICK
Restaurant 1 is selected by default and CLICK
I also have the ability to enter a sales amount in this parameter. I’ve typed in $1,000,000 to see when this restaurant hit its first million in sales each year.
Anytime I hover over a year across the top of this view, a label with more information appears below.
For example, when I hover over “2018,” I can see it took 61 business days this year for Restaurant 1 to reach $1M in sales.
And I can see the improvement over previous years…
And I can see the improvement over previous years…
And I can see the improvement over previous years…
And I can see the improvement over previous years…