Associated Wholesalers Delivers the Freshness Factor With BI
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- WebFOCUS
- iWay Service Manager
- Developer Studio
- InfoAssist
- ReportCaster
Tech Stack
- Oracle relational database
- BI dashboards
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Revenue Growth
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Applicable Industries
- Food & Beverage
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Associated Wholesalers, Inc. (AWI) is a cooperative food distributor that provides flexible distribution and business services to promote the growth and profitability of its member retailers. AWI began in the late 1950s to help a group of independent grocers compete with larger chains, but now serves thousands of retailers and earns close to $2.5 billion in revenue. AWI buys, warehouses, and resells grocery items to its members and offers a wide variety of programs and services to help them run their businesses. Independent retail stores that buy into the co-op earn dividends from AWI’s profits; enjoy greater purchasing power; and benefit from AWI’s distribution, marketing, and reporting services. AWI offers retail pricing systems, advertising programs, and point-of-sale business intelligence (BI) solutions based on each store’s transaction logs, which AWI loads into its reporting environment every day.
The Challenge
Associated Wholesalers, Inc. (AWI) is a cooperative food distributor that provides flexible business and retail services to promote the growth and profitability of its member stores. AWI began in the late 1950s to help a group of independent grocers compete with larger chains, but now serves thousands of retailers and earns close to $2.5 billion in revenue. AWI buys, warehouses, and resells grocery items to its members and offers a wide variety of programs and services to help them run their businesses. Independent retail stores that buy into the co-op earn dividends from AWI’s profits; enjoy greater purchasing power; and benefit from AWI’s distribution, marketing, and reporting services. AWI offers retail pricing systems, advertising programs, and point-of-sale business intelligence (BI) solutions based on each store’s transaction logs, which AWI loads into its reporting environment every day. Given that grocers are continually driven by a “freshness factor,” AWI has to provide its clients with up-to-the-hour data in order to deliver valuable insight. Ultimately, the company’s search for a BI environment capable of handling this challenge led Morton and his team to deploy Information Builders’ WebFOCUS BI and iWay Software integration solutions to supply accurate data and insight to its members.
The Solution
Associated Wholesalers first reached out to Information Builders as part of a modernization project that involved creating and integrating new information systems for billing, invoicing, ad planning, and other core business functions. With help from Information Builders’ Professional Services, AWI’s team deployed iWay Service Manager, which helped developers migrate data from the mainframe to an Oracle relational database, and facilitates ongoing collaboration between the new information systems. Next they used WebFOCUS Developer Studio to rewrite several key reports and deliver them automatically via WebFOCUS ReportCaster. AWI also created a series of BI dashboards. One particularly valuable executive dashboard features sales by department and commodity, updated every hour. It compares current sales metrics with data from the previous week, month, or year, and allows users to drill down and identify potential problems within each department.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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