Furniture retail giant Lewis Stores has bought Sybase's Adaptive Server IQ Multiplex analytical database to power its data warehouse. The technology helps the company to market its furniture, household appliances and electronic goods to the right customers, and increase its profitability.
Lewis Stores, a subsidiary of UK-based retail and business services group Great Universal Stores (GUS) plc, is one of the largest furniture retailers in southern Africa and operates out of more than 460 outlets in SA, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho. It has over 5 000 employees and a customer base exceeding one million.
Says Charles Irwin, Lewis Stores IT director: "We operate in a highly competitive market. Customer service, product quality and value for money are paramount to our success. We run a sales programme directed at credit worthy customers and a high percentage of sales is generated from this programme.
"The development of a Web-enabled data warehouse has added further sophistication to marketing opportunities existing within the customer base. Most importantly, it has enabled us to identify our most profitable customers."
Adaptive Server IQ Multiplex interfaces with Experian's credit bureau information and customer relationship management services. Experian is a global provider of credit management systems for business and consumer marketing, and for direct marketing solutions. "With Experian and IQ Multiplex we have the information to help us target customers, manage relationships, identify opportunities for growth and conduct secure and profitable business," says Irwin.
He says that once Lewis Stores had decided to deploy a data warehouse system to assist the company in making strategic business decisions, investigation revealed that IQ Multiplex could enhance the performance of the company's in-store UCS (Universal Communication Systems) Linux-based operational systems (including branch auditing data, brochure distribution, CRM and VAT analysis systems), and its Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise database.
"Because of its openness IQ was the best fit for our general architecture in terms of our legacy environment and other new environments we have implemented. We did not want to change any of our existing technology as this would have cost us more time and money. It is also far more robust and cost-effective than its competitors."
Irwin adds that IQ Multiplex enabled the company to improve the performance of its database, and that its data compression feature allows the database to store much more data with no limits on the number of users it can handle. Also, it is far easier to maintain than traditional databases and does not require time and resource-intensive tuning to obtain excellent performance.
Says Irwin: "From a marketing perspective we can now receive timeous, up-to-the-minute reports on the activities of our stores and our customers. This enables us to target and launch marketing efforts faster and better. We have a real-time business intelligence service with the unlimited technical ability to expand our customer base."
Lewis Stores identified that it needed to know more about its customers so that the correct product can be marketed to the correct customer at the right time. Data is now extracted from the company's operational systems on a monthly basis. The data is then bulk loaded into the IQ Multiplex data warehouse. It is also used for multi-dimensional analysis, which uses historic data to determine customer trends, and provides fast retrieval of customer and sales information. The solution enables Lewis Stores to make critical business decisions relating to marketing and credit collection strategies. It allows the company to create targeted, customer-focused in-store and direct mail campaigns. It also enables real-time checks on customers' credit rating and their ability to meet their payment commitments.
"Ultimately, the system enables us to be more aware of the aspirations of our customers," says Irwin. "We can more effectively address their needs and offer them products and services they really want."
IQ Multiplex also interfaces with the company's fraud database, an auditors' data warehouse application that helps monitor fraud. This information is shared with companies in the credit retail industry, and all new credit applications are processed through the database. "This alerts us to potential fraud risks and has helped us to identify existing fraudulent activities and deal with them upfront."
Says Julie Tomlinson, marketing manager at Sybase SA: "By implementing IQ Multiplex on top of its database, Lewis Stores is now able to provide reports to executive management and end-users in the appropriate timeframe. It has also expanded the amount of data that the company can store and the number of users who can access the database. Lewis Stores can increase its customer base, more effectively target its marketing campaigns, and determine the credit-worthiness of prospective customers without having to worry about the reporting performance of its database."
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