The system of the business analysis in retail network of handmade fresh cosmetics LUSH

The Digia company helped cosmetic network Lush to increase many times the speed of the order of products and also to find new methods of increase in sales thanks to system implementation of Digia Retail Analytics.

The LUSH RUSSIA company is the exclusive representative of a brand of Lush in Russia. Shops of handmade fresh cosmetics Lush trade in "bombs" for bathtubs, solid shampoos, massage tiles and other products made manually of natural ingredients: essential oils, infusions of herbs, flowers, fresh fruit.

All range for the shops "LUSH RUSSIA" orders directly from England where the central office of the company is located. Orders are made out weekly taking into account results of previous periods and the predicted sales on each outlet.

At the same time the accounting system used at the Russian office did not allow to analyze automatically all necessary data and to create the week order taking into account requirements of separate shops, a lot of time left on manual editing and data analysis.

Lush Russia companies were required more effective tools of analytics and decision support which will reduce terms of formation of purchase orders of products and also will help to find new "points of growth" - ways of increase in profit of retail chain stores.

The management "LUSH RUSSIA" stopped the choice on the Digia Retail Analytics system – the solution which is specially created for retail networks and successfully implemented in several tens Russian trading companies. Digia Retail Analytics uses the developed means and tools of the business analysis of Microsoft for fast and effective solution of tasks, relevant for retailers.

During the project specialists of Digia created the uniform data warehouse using data from the accounting systems of the customer that allowed to expand analytical opportunities to simplify access to necessary information and to increase its quality. The constructed OLAP cubes accelerated receiving and data analysis about sales to the company in different cuts, such as warehouse indicators, sales informations to within the check, ABC analysis of different groups of goods, etc.

Basis of Digia Retail Analytics is Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 comprising powerful tools of the business analysis. SQL Server is the most popular platform for data warehousing, OLAP and the reporting. Using the means of MS BI entering the MS SQL Server 2008 R2, the company had an opportunity to analyze data bulks with a flash-like speed, using at the same time a convenient and usual interface of the application of Microsoft Office and powerful functionality of setup of various filters.

Thus, the solution using which any employee of Lush can create the sales report necessary for it, to a remaining balance in warehouses, to a remaining balance in way by cost value, to the sales price, quantity and other parameters was created.

The most important stage of the project was creation of the module of the autoorder. Using possibilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Excel and specially developed macroes, the autoorder module automatically creates the purchase order of products for all outlets of Lush. At the same time sales informations of previous periods, requirements to the minimum remaining balance in warehouses, special requirements of separate shops and other information are in real time considered.

In a project deliverable the Lush company received the powerful and convenient analytical tool which considerably accelerated work and which allowed to make the deep and versatile analysis. Automation of routine transactions, quality improvement of data and new analytical tools gave to employees an opportunity to find more time for the complex analysis of activity and search of ways of further development of the company.

The LUSH RUSSIA company is going to use more actively possibilities of Microsoft Business Intelligence, to carry out deeper and versatile data analysis on the basis of which expects to continue process optimization of an inventory control, logistics and sales.