Maplewave Business Intelligence - Flow

Summary

Amid an acquisition and 5-year investment project, Cable & Wireless suffered from a fragmented retail estate that included a mix of new and legacy stores. With their heritage systems, it was impossible to aggregate data or compare stores across markets, or even measure individual store performance. Maplewave’s Business Intelligence solution came to the rescue.

Bio

In 2017, Cable & Wireless operated in 15 markets across the Caribbean, providing a mixture of wireless and fixed-line services in different markets.

Faced with heavy competition in their market, they agreed to a merger with Columbus Communications, which dramatically increased their fixed-line capability across the region. This change allowed them to offer a quad-play, converged product in many markets.

After a rebrand as Flow, they were acquired by Liberty Global, who wanted to understand and drive performance from the 200 retail stores in the region.

Pain Points

Flow stores did not have any systems or reporting capabilities that allowed them to measure individual performance or compare different groups across markets. Their BI capability had been historically weak; once Maplewave’s Point of Sale solution was deployed in the first markets, we were able to showcase performance data that could facilitate fast decision making.

The secondary challenge was understanding the relative performance of staff; Flow could not identify or reward the top sellers in each store, nor could they help re-train poor performers.

Challenges

The first challenge was to identify the critical KPIs that were common to each store and each market. Because we had already finished the rollout of the POS, the system was already primed to show different markets in the same data warehouse.

Once we developed the core KPIs, we were then faced with the challenge of aggregating the data into a single KPI sheet. Having the data in one place would facilitate direct comparisons, such as country vs country, store vs store and staff evaluations.

We needed to ensure the data was presented in an appealing, digestible way. The reporting dashboard needed to be visually stunning, and the data that was presented needed to be easily understood and actioned by different groups of people within the business.

Defining the core KPIs was critical. We needed to identify the proper subset that would drive desired staff behaviors. Finding the balance was a delicate process; having too many would overwhelm staff and having too few would not generate meaningful changes. The metrics also needed to be sufficiently focused; if they were too broad, it wouldn’t be possible to target a specific vertical, and if they were too narrow, the opposite problem would occur.

In addition to KPIs, we needed to help Cable & Wireless implement individual performance metrics to facilitate performance management within their stores and markets. This would allow management to identify top performers and areas of opportunity so they could focus their efforts more effectively.

We worked with the business to develop a target-generating algorithm to act as a suggested starting point for individual, store, and market targets. This would ensure business targets were met, and that small stores could be directly compared to flagship stores.

The Solution

The earlier deployment of Maplewave’s POS was the key steppingstone towards deploying our Business Intelligence module, as it was already accumulating data from across the market.

At the request of Cable & Wireless’s head office in Miami, we custom-built a dashboard dubbed “The President’s Club”. It was then tested in the various markets that had already started using Maplewave’s POS. It was a huge success with all parties, and we were asked to deploy this feature across the entire business with a market-by-market rollout.

Results

The set of KPIs that were developed during this process were presented in “The President’s Club” dashboard. Cable & Wireless is now able to view individual, store, and market performance, as well as compare like-for-like performance across different store types and countries.

As a result of the information, they can identify and reward top performers, and focus additional resources and training for those who are struggling.

By moving the needle ever so slightly on the set of KPIs, Cable & Wireless can drive their retail business in the right direction and remain competitive well into the future.

Conclusion

The crowning achievement of a retail transformation is when you can turn data into knowledge. When you have access to the right dashboards and reports, you are given clear direction that drives performance and simplifies complex decisions. It’s the ultimate ROI.

If you’re ready to gain the ultimate insight into your business, contact Maplewave to see how we can transform you into an industry leader.