How We Optimized Retailer's Workforce by Leveraging Beacon & Big Data Technologies

Big data


Executive Summary

One of the largest companies by revenue in Europe, the client is a multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Rome, the client boasts the presence of over 500 stores across the globe with a workforce of 12000 employees. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, the client has recently opened stores in North America.

Client Challenges

  • Eying the business expansion, the client was planning to grow their presence in the USA and Latin America
  • However, the client wanted to ensure the workplace efficiency and employee productivity before chalking out the plan of handling the increased amount of data as a result of the possible expansion Going for the expansion of such massive scale for the first time, the client found it extremely difficult to
  • Identify opportunities for workforce optimization
  • Analyze work movements of store associates in terms of time spent across various departments
  • Take tech assistance in improving business processes and thereby efficiency

Our Solutions

  • We were quick to identify that the client’s inability to optimize workforce and workplace stemmed from their inadequate data gathering and performance monitoring systems
  • Since it’s impossible to optimize the workforce without tracking employee movement, scheduled work hours, dwell time & behavior across departments, we advocated used of Beacons- the tiny and inexpensive, micro-location-based technology devices that can send radio frequency signals and notify nearby Bluetooth devices of their presence and transmit information
  • Moreover, beacons would have addressed the client’s pain point of analyzing work movements, as smartphones or other mobile devices can capture the beacon signals and distance can be estimated by measuring received signal strength (RSSI)
  • To establish a better correlation between store KPIs such as sales, transactions, traffic, actual worked hours and employees’ efficiency, we suggested thorough monitoring of time spent by associates between their home departments, external departments, and neighboring departments through Wifi & Beacon technologies

To ensure quality in data input and the resultant recommendations, we devised a four-part solution:

    A) Data Repository:

    It included-

  • Schedule Hours
  • Actual Worked Hours
  • Device usage data
  • Customer Traffic
  • POS data
  • Employee demographics

    B) Data Repository:

    It performed-

  • Big Data Cleansing
  • Data Transformation
  • Big Data Mapping
  • Variable Creation
  • Master data set creation

    A) Pattern Recognition:

    It comprised-

  • Trend Analysis
  • Correlation Analysis
  • Outlier Detection
  • Department Analysis
  • Pattern Identification

    A) Insights & Recommendations:

    It included-

  • Tracked Employee movement
  • Dwell time & behavior across departments
  • Increased revenue per worker hour by Identifying under-utilization and over-utilization of worked hours
  • Impact of Labor movement on Sales & Customer experience

Quantifiable Benefits

  • Improved sales, close-rate and customer experience metrics due to better tracking of employee movement and dwell time
  • Amplified revenue per working hour by accurately recognizing under-utilization and over-utilization of workers
  • Accurate forecasting of the labor demand

About Futurism Technologies

Futurism Technologies is a global business leader, that bringing 360-degree Digital Transformation for business enterprises of various sizes, as well as technology providers by delivering assured business efficiency through a set of new-age technologies. We provide end-to-end high quality and cost-effective IT services to a variety of industries. With state of the art offices in India, US, UK, Australia, and UAE, we have become a global trusted partner of our clients by delivering age-defining and convention-defying digital transformation solutions.