The document discusses the challenges and solutions associated with managing point-of-sale (POS) data, emphasizing the need for integration and cleansing from various retailers. It introduces 'posmart' and 'tradesmart,' solutions designed to streamline data handling, improve accessibility, and provide actionable insights for businesses. The architecture supports data integration from multiple sources, enabling enhanced analytics and performance tracking across retail segments.

1. Turning Data into Actionable Information
SmartSuite Architecture
POSmart & TradeSmart
Janet Dorenkott
440-899-3296 x225
janetd@relationalsolutions.com

2. Confidential - for limited circulation only
“Top 10
Companies on
the Move”
BlueSky
Integration
Studio
“Best at
integrating POS
with Internal data”
Weatherhead 100
Fastest Growing
Businesses
First Release of
Oracle
Developer of
the Year
Data Warehouse &
BI Consulting
1996 - 98 1999 - 01 2002 – 04 2005 - 06 2007 - 08 2009 - 10 2011 – 12 2013-2015
“Data Warehouse
of the Year!”
BlueSky “Coolest
New Technologies”
DataStage ETL Best
Implementors Award
Company Background
Informatica’s
Partner of the Year
Selects POSmart
to embed in DSR
Partnering to
support DSMi
2014 NEO
Software
Assn. “Best
Software”

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CPG Customers

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Lowes
Home Depot
Costco
Shipments
Other POS data
EDI/FF/txt/Access, etc
Wholesaler/Dist
AC Nielsen/IRI/Spectra/
IMS/Radient 6/Market 6, etc.
Submit Reports
Most time spent gathering disparate
data
•Gather ing
•Cleaning
•Integr ating
•Justifying
?
Inconsistent reports lead
to questionable decisions
Meijers
Wal-Mart, Shiloh
Retail Link, EDI/AS2
?
?
? ?
?
?
The POS Data Dilemma
Kmart

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• G a t h e r i n g
• C l e a n i n g
• I n t e g r a t i n g
• J u s t i f y i n g
Why POS Data Cleansing?
Property of Relational Solutions, Inc. By Janet Dorenkott June 2015
Big Data, Omni-Channel
& New Data Sources
End User
Requests Change
Data Frequency is
Inconsistent
Data Formats Vary
From Source to Source
You Are at the Mercy of
Retailer Decisions
Constantly Changing
Conditions
POS is Not Always Available
& May Cost Money
Everyone Wants to See
Data Differently
Different Sources?
Different Reliability
Every Retailer Provides
Different Data Elements
Lack of Integration &
Manageability

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Every Retailer Provides Different Data Elements
Date Time Units Price Store # In Transit OH Inv OH Qty In
Warehouse
On
Order
9/16/2015 08:12:00 150 $3.20 #442 30 20 10 20 50
Date Time Units Store #
9/16/2015 10:14:06 122 #210
Retailer A
Retailer B

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Aligning Different Week Start & End Dates
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

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Different Sources, Different Formats
EDI 852
EDI 867
SAP
Retailer
Portals
AS2
Oracle
TXT
SQL
Excel
CSV
How Do I get
all these
sources into
1 common
database
type?
FTP
Access

9. Confidential - for limited circulation only
Different Sources, Different Reliability
Missing
Data
EDI
Inconsistencies
UPC
Issues
Portal
is Down
Re-Casts
• Data was supposed to come in from CVS today! Where is it?
• RetailLink is down!
• Walgreens is padding UPC codes in the front with 2 digits!
• Food Lion is padding UPC codes in the back with 1 digit!
• Kroger wants us to buy data from Market 6!
• Dollar General was missing 2 days from last month!
• Target EDI came in 4 hours late!

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Different Retailers, Different Hierarchies
Internal
Category
Brand
Sub-Brand
Item
Product #
Retailer A
Category
Sub-
Category
Brand
Product #
Product ID
Sku
Retailer B
Category
Sub-
Category
Item #
Item Name
Sku

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Frequency of Feeds Vary
EDI
Daily
Syndicated
Data Monthly
ERP Data
Every Second
Currency
Conversion
Daily
Daily POS
Once a Month
RMA
Annually
Plan Data
When
Available
Weather Trends
Quarterly

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Constantly Changing Market Conditions
New Competitors New Retailers
Trends
New Laws
Acquire a Company
Economy Management Direction
National Conditions Natural Disaster
New Corporate Direction
Retailers Partners
Company switches
data providers
The company adds a new data source
Retailer Contracts
New CEO

13. Confidential - for limited circulation only
You Are Subject To Retailer Decisions
Make Portal
Changes
Start Sending
Inventory
New POS Source
Category Focus
Changed
New Buyer
Update Contract
Restrictions
Policy
Changes
More Data Offered
Opened New Stores
Acquired Another
Retailer

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End User Requirements Change
I Need to see
Target compared
to Walmart
Include
Shipments in
this Report
How do I
compare my
sales with
plans?
We just
bought new
demographic
data
I need to
calculate
potential
impact
I upgraded
our Nielsen
contract
We switched
from SAP to
Oracle
I want to
compare this
with weather
trends
I want to compare
POS from the
retailer with POS
from IRI

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POSmart
Consistency
• Easy Access to
Information
• Improved Productivity
Streamline Data
Gathering
Synchronize, Integrate &
Validate POS
Wal-Mart/Shiloh
EDI /AS2/Retail Link
Promo/Forecasts
Costco
Nielsen/Spectra/RSi
Shipping
Kmart
Meijers
IRI/Mkt6/NPD
EDI, AS2
Lowes
Wholesaler/Dist
Home Depot
Productive Meetings
Integration & Harmonization

16. Confidential - for limited circulation only
“Smart Solution Architecture”
 BlueSky Integration Studio (BIS)
– Data Integration, Cleansing & Harmonization
– POS Integrator with Pre-built retailer mappings
– Customizable business rules
– POS Cleansing and validation routines
– Integration objects for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Excel, ODBC, OLEDB,
Teradata, Neteeza, SAP, SAP Hana, RL, txt, FTP, Access, Nielsen, IRI, NPD,
etc.
 Flexible Data model – Design/Retail Calendars/Report Matrix
“POSmart”
 Control Center Editor
 BlueSky Analytics, Viewer, XL Builder
 “TradeSmart”
 BlueSky Analytics, Viewer, XL Builder
 PromoPro

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POSmart
•Enterprise Demand Signal Repository Solution
•POSmart leverages the Smart Solution hub and data
model.
•Automates the integration & cleansing of point of sale
data
•Harmonizes all POS data sources including POS,
syndicated data, third party providers, etc.
• Aligns hierarchy’s. Applies and synchronizes retailer calendars, items,
geographies, etc. with your internal ones.
• Report Matrix enriches data for more insights.
• Leverages POS so you can see actual sales versus shipments, budgets,
forecasts, geographies, etc.
• BlueSky pushes reports & alerts out to identify
OOS, Phantom inventory, zero scans, shipments
versus consumption, etc.

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Military,
Distributor
Budget
3rd Party
GL
Forecasts
Reports
Scheduled
& Cached
Shipments
SourcesRetailers
WalMart
Home Depot
Costco
Kroger/DunH
Meijers
Sam’s
Distributors
POSmart
Integrate, Validate,
Synchronize & Manage
BlueSky
Over 200 KPI’s
Or Other BI Tool
DW
POS
Integrator
BIS
EDI, Text, Flat
Files, Access,
Retail Link,
Partners
SAP, JDE, DB2,
Oracle, JDA
Users access via
web
3rd Party Data:
AC Nielsen/IRI
Spectra/NPD,
Market6, RSi
Forecast
Shipments,
Promo, Vendor
TradeSmart
POSmart
“Smart” Architecture
OtherTPM
BlueSky Analytics
Power User
BlueSky Viewer
Casual Users or
BlueSky XL Users
Control
Center

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BlueSky Analytics Home Page
Users Chose “Favorites” and
put those reports in folders they
create to show up on their
home page.
Alerts show up on your home
page. Users can create or
receive Alerts.
Severity level of alert can be set
based on criteria you set.
Multiple levels of Security
based on your login.

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BlueSky Analytics

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BlueSky XL Builder
Easily create
queries with Bluesky
Worlds
Combine data from
disparate sources
Automatically creates
Pivot Tables
Have multiple
queries in a single
Workbook
Use Excel formulas
and formatting
One-click refresh
with security
60 minute training

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What is TradeSmart?
 TradeSmart leverages the Smart Solution Architecture with the automation,
integration and harmonization of various trade components
 Promotion Automation and Analytics solution.
 The intersection of plans, shipments and consumption as it relates to trade
promotions
 The ability to accurately analyze the outcomes of trade promotions and compare to
planning expectations across all retail segments
 The ability to understand whether or not promotions were properly executed and
the amount of retail compliance
 The common repository for all historical promotions which enables multi-year
analysis/comparison of trade spend initiatives
 The ability to feed results to other systems – planning, supply chain, predictive,
merchandising, etc.
 TPI – Trade Promotion Intelligence

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Automate
Integration &
Harmonize into
Data Model
Plan
Improvement
Trade
• Shipments
• Products
• Plans
• Syndicated
BlueSky
PromoPro
• Planning Data
• Shipments
• Consumption
• IRI
• AC Nielsen
• POS
• Master Data
• Forecast Data
• COGS
• Other
Source Data
Capture
Disparate &
Complex
Source Data
TradeSmart Solution Architecture
Relational Solutions, Inc.
BIS
TradeSmart
Designed for
fast access,
Powerful
Analytics, Easy
KPI Dashboard

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The Challenge
Time
 Time required for data gathering and analysis across all retail segments
is next to impossible
Resources & Coverage
 How many resources are required to cover all promotions across all
retail segments
Data integration
 Integrating and aligning at a common level for planning data, shipments
and consumption is very complex
 No consistency across retailers
Clean historical data
 For all data sources
– Shipments – palets/cases to eaches
– Consumption – syndicated data vs. direct downstream retailer
– Trade Plans – spreadsheets or 3rd party application
Where is the COMMON REPOSITORY for harmonized, aligned data
for ALL future learnings

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Rule-based system. Allows for a streamlined process where ROI calculation is
consistent and accurate
Process driven capabilities allowing visibility to non-compliant events
Insight into planned spending to retail execution by event or product is visible
up the hierarchy
Uses cost information to understand your true margins and contribution
Provides visibility to historical pricing to protect against margin erosion
Knowing “sell-through” and supply chain visibility by incorporating shipments
Benefits of TradeSmart

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Janetd@relationalsolutions.com
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