3Sach is an innovative retailer which operates 9 grocery stores in Ho Chi Minh City.
In 2020, 3Sach turned to Parallel Insight Solution for an effective way to analyze the performance of its stores, knowing that Parallel Insight has successfully delivery similar projects recently. In order to drive consistency and performance across stores, there is a need to measure performance for each store as well as the whole company at consolidated level. It became too difficult to track and analyze all these within spreadsheets and the current ERP system lacks analytics features. Extracting insights took hours and days and required expertise using spreadsheet formulas. The size of data sets was also an issue and meant that files sometimes failed to load.
Seeking an alternative to spreadsheets, 3Sach chose Tableau because it would allow employees to visualize and interact with their data and reduce the time spent on data analysis. It was also user friendly, meaning that employees could get started with Tableau relatively quickly.
“Based on our evaluation of different options, Tableau was the best fit for our needs due to cost, performance, and ease of use for end-users, and Parallel Insight team had successfully implemented at Interflour Group in SEA market” said Trang Nguyen – Founder at 3sachfood.vn
Establishing data literacy
For 3Sach, there were three key components in building a strong DATA CULTURE. The first was support from management which included investment in the right technology as well as investment in time for employees to build and learn new skills. The second was an open-minded approach from business users who readily embraced opportunities to apply data insights to their daily activities. Finally, Parallel Insight was a team of “bridge builders” who helped to drive training and other enablement activities within 3Sach.
Enablement activities included fortnightly Quick Insight Workshops to bring new users onto Tableau. 3Sach then held more frequent Advanced Workshops to enable power users.
To further support adoption, Parallel Insight established templates for routine reporting and analysis. They also organized Data Investigate sessions where they had the opportunity to show the benefit of insight data to find solutions to specific operation problems. This led to business process enhancements like shorter lead time of delivery and higher inventory turnover, helping 3Sach optimize its use of resource.
3Sach was supported in its adoption journey by Parallel Insight team. The team helped to orchestrate enablement activities based on the Tableau which offers a step-by-step guide to becoming a data-driven organization. Tableau is now firmly embedded into the business which helps them to improve POS sales, Financial KPI, Purchasing Process and Inventory Management.
Automating and visualizing insights
3Sach now has automated dashboards to analyze business activities across department, including sales and profit. The dashboards have reduced time spent on routine reporting and equipped employees to focus on more value-added work, including business strategy and interactions with stakeholders.
Employees can also drill down into the data in just a few clicks and get a comprehensive view of how each store, department, category, and even product is performing.
3Sachfood Retail gets a full picture of its business in just a few clicks
“Everyone in the team can now access the same insights, from anywhere, at any time. It helps team members to better prepare for their meetings with stakeholders and allows management to pinpoint issues or opportunities and react quickly with a consistent set of numbers” said Trang Nguyen.
3Sach credits the visualization capabilities of Tableau for helping it quickly tackle business problems. For example, when analyzing decreases in sales performance for a particular store, business metrics can be presented in a way to easily show which categories or brands have contributed to the change. Outliers or anomalies in the data can also be highlighted.
Driving brand success
3Sach is using Tableau to provide visibility of business performance, thereby driving penetration of this brand to provide more value to customers. The dashboards are highly visual with good use of charts and colors so that it is easy to identify call outs and discussion points.
For example, management can easily see drop-in margin rate from one month to the next. They can then drill down into the underlying data in a few clicks to understand the contributing factors. These insights ultimately enable them to quickly adjust pricing or make other decisions to get inventory fulfilled during the pandemic.
3Sach Food Store
3Sach’s adoption journey with Tableau has been positive and it continues to see strong momentum with new users and department coming on board and adding data literacy to their skillsets. There is also increasing consolidation and standardization of business performance dashboards across department. Management and team members also have increasing visibility of business performance, with less reliance on external consultants.
“In the past, there’s always challenges to get the right data, organize them, and then putting in reports for analysis at speed. Business has struggled with getting the right insights timely. With Tableau and Parallel Insight team, we can build fit for purpose dashboard/report visualization solutions that enable teams to perform. Digitalization is already accelerated due to COVID-19, and data platforms such as Tableau enables a data-driven way of working that allows us to adapt, adjust, and respond to a rapidly changing market” said Trang Nguyen.