PivotLink | Case Study

Founded in 1938 by a group of Pacific Northwest mountaineers, REI is now a national outdoor retail co-op dedicated to inspiring, educating, and outfitting its members and the community for outdoor adventure and stewardship. For 10 consecutive years, REI has been recognized by FORTUNE magazine as one of “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.”

Challenge

REI had a performance analysis tool for internal use, but it couldn't do all they wanted cost-effectively. And with the licensing fees involved, they couldn't afford to broaden internal use and externalize the data for their vendors. They didn't want to create a redundant environment, so they decided to shift the money being spent on the old analysis system to a product that could meet their goals.

Solution

According to REI, PivotLink won the hearts of both staff and suppliers by delivering large amounts of data quickly, presenting information in a consistent way, and allowing each person to slice and dice data at will. The PivotLink solution provides timely performance data to about 375 users, including:

Largest volume vendors, helping them maximize their product sales
Store managers, helping them maximize in-store sales through in-stock, inventory, and product performance analysis
Merchandising employees, supporting better buying decisions
Employees in finance, marketing, and human resources, who use it for budget comparisons, reducing expenses, tracking campaigns, and much more

Results

Reduced costs for critical performance analytics
9% increase in sales and 1.6% increase in profit
Improved in-stock rates, resulting in more satisfied customers
Buying decisions based on what’s selling and what’s not
Ability for business users to slice and dice data any way they want
Significantly improved communications with largest volume suppliers

SmartWool
"The key factor that drove us to PivotLink's solution was usability. We needed a solution that would easily allow all levels of management, from president to sales managers, access to reports and ad-hoc queries."
- Kevin Lotz, IT Director

Anchor Blue
"There is a tremendous amount of data and it is important to be able to crunch that data all the way down to the item level and all the way up to class level. We never had that kind of visibility before."
- Harrison Kang, IT Director
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Car Toys
"PivotLink is terrific, so flexible. People can use it in whatever way they want. A merchandising clerk may only need it to check one thing a day; the senior VP of merchandising, who does heavy analysis, might look at inventory turns, inventory levels, and gross margin return on investments; and our replenishment team uses PivotLink to track sales trends and demand so they can make better buying decisions."
- Tom Lockwood, CIO
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