Scaling New Heights

As retailers span the globe in search of vendors and customers, business intelligence has become increasingly critical.

The North Face had long relied on such data to drive its business, but with more than a hundred spreadsheets coming in from dozens of sources, data management was extremely challenging. Enlisting the software-as-a-solution (SaaS) offerings of PivotLink, the San Leandro, Calif.-based outdoor apparel and gear retailer has been able to whittle down its data-crunching duties from days to seconds with just the click of a mouse.

The North Face product line has grown in recent years as it expanded beyond its base of avid outdoor athletes into mainstream markets. The business model is composed of four primary pillars: corporate social responsibility, outdoor participation, product innovation and exceptional brand experience. The North Face products are sold at more than 40 company-owned retail stores and outlets in the United States and Europe and at countless retailers around the world.

Like all retailers, The North Face is always seeking ways to optimize sell-through. Sarah Jones, the company’s manager of retail floor space management, is responsible for gathering, aggregating and disseminating the information that makes this possible.

Before working with PivotLink, she says, data was extremely disorganized. “It came in from all over the place in all kinds of formats. My vision was to enhance this part of the business, track retail wholesaling and ensure that what we created and produced was what was selling on the retail floor.”

Jones enlisted the aid of PivotLink to create reports that could be used by executive, forecasting and sourcing teams, as well as The North Face’s more than 100 sales representatives.

Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy for PivotLink, says the company’s high-speed and scalable data analytics engine is capable of handling millions of records on the fly. Clients work with PivotLink to customize reports that show the data and fields they require.

“It’s like a big pivot table on steroids,” Hensen says. “Whereas a typical table will start to slow down at a couple hundred thousand rows, we go up to a couple billion rows.”

PivotLink uses advanced technologies like in-memory analytics, columnar data storage and cloud computing to deliver the data exactly as clients need it. This allows retailers to track margins, slash inventory levels and better understand customers to design campaigns and stock the right products. PivotLink gives retailers instant access to metrics like inventory turns, stock levels, highest gross-margin SKUs, order status and store comparisons.

With customer sentiment constantly changing, it can sometimes be difficult for retailers to stay abreast of what is hot: Even when they gather that information daily, it’s often hard to compile and analyze it. PivotLink allows them to see that information visually to make adjustments and analyze the business around profitability, sell-through or customer satisfaction.