Topco Cuts Costs, Boosts Private Label Penetration With WebFOCUS
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- WebFOCUS
- InfoAssist
- Performance Management Framework
Tech Stack
- IBM DB2
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Excel
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Food & Beverage
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- Data Science Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
Topco Associates LLC is a privately held grocery cooperative that provides innovative business solutions for its food industry member-owners and customers. The company focuses on developing, procuring, and delivering store-wide product and service solutions. Primarily focused around a retailer’s private label offerings, Topco leverages the collective volume, knowledge, and commitment of its 52 member-owners to create a competitive advantage in the retail marketplace. The company boasts annual sales in excess of $11.6 billion. Topco recently selected Information Builders to resolve its business intelligence (BI), data integration, and information integrity challenges as part of a five-year information technology modernization project.
The Challenge
Topco Associates, a grocery cooperative, was facing challenges in reducing product costs and increasing private label penetration to compete with larger national competitors. The company had a diverse back-end infrastructure with numerous departmental database applications and about two dozen off-line data marts serving specific needs. This made accessing basic data difficult. The grocery industry operates on extremely slim margins, averaging 1.5 percent to 2 percent, so operational expenses are always scrutinized and IT dollars must be spent carefully. While some consultants advised Topco to implement a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the Topco team was leery of embarking on such a project.
The Solution
Topco decided to engage Information Builders to help them improve the information systems that they already have and to create a framework of data that will support new technologies when necessary. Information Builders competed against all of the other players in the BI segment. Topco picked Information Builders because of the robust solutions for business intelligence and data governance which are flexible enough to work with and bring together existing technologies. It is this unified data framework created by the Information Builders’ technologies that will support Topco’s business transformation into a true data-driven company. Topco purchased Information Builders’ WebFOCUS BI platform to create and deliver intelligent dashboards that produce insight at a glance and reports that provide Topco management with a simpler and more effective way of answering questions without constant assistance from the IT staff.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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