Thiele is a nationwide chain of opticians with 64 stores in cities across Denmark. The chain has its own glass grinding facility and its own line of designer glasses. The Thiele branches also carry contact lenses, sunglasses, and accessories - as well as glasses from strong brands such as Gucci and Armani.
Management of the retail chain of opticians, Thiele, wanted to focus more on sales results, and since they were already in the market for a new retail system (to register sales, customers, products etc.), they decided to also look for a business intelligence solution to be used for analyses of registered figures. The objective was to provide all employees as well as Thiele management with deeper insight into sales and performance – in the individual stores and nationwide.
For Thiele the solution was TARGIT
”We were looking for a new retail system, and we ended up choosing the supplier who could also deliver TARGIT”, says Ole Bentzen, CEO of Thiele. TARGIT provided the opportunity to analyze sales and performance in all aspects of the company – from individual employees to the various business areas as well as the entire chain. “In TARGIT we can see how much each store sold yesterday or during a period of time. We use it to acknowledge stores that are performing well and to examine matters at stores that are not selling enough. It gives us insight into the hard facts which can then be used as background knowledge when looking closer at how we can optimize the business.” In the individual stores, store managers are watching figures on a daily basis, their own figures as well as the figures from their colleagues in the chain.
TARGIT Business Intelligence Suite collects data from the retail system, CB Retail which is based on SQL servers from Microsoft. In addition, Thiele is expecting to enhance the BI solution to also include data from the finance system which is based on AS400 servers from IBM.
Value on the bottom line
TARGIT has brought noticeable changes at Thiele. Employees can quickly see whether particular initiatives are successful or not, and they have a better opportunity for optimizing their work. “The dynamics of individual employees are blossoming when they are able to monitor their own results and can see whether they are meeting sales objectives on a daily basis. I think the visual element in the software from TARGIT is what makes the difference. It is professionalism converted to sales”, Ole Bentzen says.
All levels of the company are experiencing visible progress on the bottom line, and this is always the ultimate measure of how business is performing. “The optimization that we have achieved by using TARGIT can be seen on our bottom line. We started in the summer of 2003 and, compared to market performance in our area, we have outperformed the marked by 15-20 percent.”
