MicroStrategy Reports
Sell-Through
Reallocations
Inventory Turns
Weeks of Supply
Hot Item Report
Seasonal Buying
Lineal Feet
In Stock %
Mark Down %
Department Contribution

Customer Snapshots: Ace Hardware and Hallmark Cards

More than 6,400 users at Ace Hardware rely on MicroStrategy every day for merchandise analysis reporting. MicroStrategy's enterprise-wide deployment at Ace delivers insight on the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, pricing, product management, inventory, and loyalty programs. "We are always looking for new ways to enhance operational efficiencies, and MicroStrategy provides us with the technology to do just that," said Ace Hardware's Technology Business Manager.

Hallmark Cards has reduced product development and merchandising time with MicroStrategy, enabling better evaluation of promotions, reducing in-store testing time, and improving inventory and planning for individual stores. Hallmark's MicroStrategy solution tracks sales and predicts trends to drive profitable inventory, display and marketing decisions. The Web-based platform opens up Hallmark's ever-growing point-of-sale (POS) data warehouse to business analysts across the country.

MicroStrategy Reports
Vendor Efficiency
Vendor AP/AR
Vendor Performance
    Scorecards
Vendor Rationalization
Shipper Checks and
    Balances
Track Vendors and Orders
Stock Analysis
Shipping Costs
Reallocation/Direct Store
    Delivery

Customer Snapshots: Frontline, Hudson's Bay Company & Payless ShoeSource

MicroStrategy provides Frontline with in-depth analysis of sales and supply data for the 150 publications circulated to 55,000 retailers in the UK, which stock magazines managed by Frontline.

"Our primary objective is to improve the efficiency and focus and our distribution across the UK. For the first time we will have a real understanding of where our products sell, enabling better strategic planning and more efficient distribution management." - Geoff Love, Marketing Services Manager

MicroStrategy users at Hudson's Bay Company include store managers, company executives, financial and marketing analysts, and outside vendor personnel.

"MicroStrategy's zero-footprint Web interface enables increased information sharing with our vendors, allowing us to realize efficiency and productivity gains that will help us more proactively serve our customers."
- Gary Davenport, HBC's Vice President of Information Services

Payless ShoeSource uses MicroStrategy to ensure inventory is available to meet planned (and unplanned) business events. Analysts run reports that depict inventory and shipment information, allowing Payless ShoeSource to better meet anticipated customer demand. Similar reports are frequently used to make intelligent inventory replenishment decisions when sales demand cannot be covered by available inventory.

MicroStrategy Reports
Sales & Margin
Front Store Sales
Sales/Square Foot
Comp Store Sales
Competitor Sales
Return on Assets — ROA
Inventory Turnover
Register Usage Analysis

Customer Snapshots: Lowe's Companies and The Wet Seal

Lowe's Companies is the world's second largest home improvement retailer and the 14th largest retailer in the U.S. Approximately 1,400 Lowe's employees use MicroStrategy to perform ad-hoc queries or run reports against an 8-terabyte data warehouse.

Lowe's is realizing significant benefits — including high returns on investment — through improved merchandising decisions, more timely responses to information requests, cost reductions, and enhanced employee productivity.

Using MicroStrategy, The Wet Seal analyzes extensive transactional data to glean insight on the sales trends of its products by specific regions, demographics, and stores. Users create personalized reports for managers in 600 stores.

"MicroStrategy is providing the complete solution for Wet Seal's exacting needs. MicroStrategy offers exceptional user-friendly reporting features, superior scalability for large databases, outstanding Web deployability, and powerful analytics for the most granular-level data. MicroStrategy is a top-of-the-line system for bottom-line results." - Michael Relich, CIO, The Wet Seal

MicroStrategy Reports
Profitability Analysis
Customer Segmentation
Share-of-Wallet
Revenue Contribution
Attrition Risk Analysis
Post-Campaign Analysis
Customer Loyalty
Core Items
Items and Price Per Basket
Demographic Baskets
Brand Switching
Shopper Penetration

Customer Snapshots: METRO Group and Ace Hardware

The fifth-largest global retailer, METRO Group, has deployed MicroStrategy enterprise-wide. Approximately 1,500 users track sales trends and perform ad-hoc analysis to understand the drivers behind product performance. Users also run reports to provide suppliers with scorecards on product planning, forecasting, and replenishment.

"MicroStrategy meets the METRO Group's demanding requirements for a highly flexible, stable and scalable business intelligence platform. The MicroStrategy-based system enables our employees to track the performance of the entire company, optimize product assortment and make decisions that increase revenue and profitability." - Silvester Macho, Division Manager, METRO Group Information Technology

Ace Hardware uses MicroStrategy enterprise-wide for retail analyses. Additionally, MicroStrategy powers the Ace Hardware loyalty program, known as the Helpful Hardware Club, which allows Ace to manage its larger customer base and customize promotions by demographic, buying patterns, season, and geography.

MicroStrategy Reports
Scorecards
Pricing Modules
Profitability Analysis
Assortment Optimization
Category Scorecards
Market Comparison
Role Analysis
SKU Rationalization
Item Definitions
Share of Shelf
Category Contribution
Season Changeover

Customer Snapshots: Dick's Sporting Goods, Value City Department Stores and Raley's

MicroStrategy replaced Cognos at Dick's Sporting Goods, allowing store managers, merchandising analysts and senior managers to perform sophisticated category management, sales, and inventory analysis. The MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform allows employees to more effectively track product sales, product mix, and inventory levels.

Value City Department Stores, DSW and Filene's Basement employees, merchandising analysts and senior management will use MicroStrategy software to analyze customer data and product inventories. Ken DeWitt, Sr. Vice President and CIO, stated that, "End users will be able to perform sales, category, and inventory management analyses in order to more effectively track promotions, product mix, and inventory levels."

Raley's employees perform category management analysis, track shipping, examine sales trends, streamline budgeting and eliminate inventory inefficiencies with MicroStrategy. The solution has led to improved gross margins of nearly 15 percent.

"Our category managers and category analysts have an easy-to-use, Web-based interface that helps them to better market, merchandise, and price our products at any time of the day. MicroStrategy is helping us to perform our jobs more nimbly and efficiently." - CIO of Raley's Supermarkets & Drug Center

MicroStrategy Reports
Inventory Turns
Inventory Breakage,
  Spoilage, Obsolescence
At-Risk Inventory
Inventory Procurement
Stock Levels
Fill Rates
Stock Outs
Handling Costs
Carry Costs
Inventory Leakage/Waste
Order, Ship & Arrival Dates

Customer Snapshots:

National Retailer
A major retailer uses MicroStrategy to avoid write-offs by combing its inventory for goods it can sell before their value is depleted severely. Inventory found to be "at risk" is then moved at a discount, leading to increased cash flow and marginal sales increases.

National Boutique Retailer
MicroStrategy is helping a leading national boutique retailer find and stop inventory leakage throughout its inventory processes - from ordering, to picking, to shipping, to arrival. The retailer uses MicroStrategy to capture data at more stages of the process, information such as order dates, ship dates, arrival dates, and quantities present at each point, and to run BI reports across complex metrics that have helped the retailer eliminate charges for inventory it has never received.

MicroStrategy Reports
Shrink Analysis
Vendor Rationalization
Natural Losses
Return Rates
Cancels and Mid-voids
Markdowns
Backorders
Hot Stores, Staff,
    Customers
Distribution Shrink
Refund Fraud
Fraudulent Credit Card
    Activity

Customer Snapshot: CSK Auto
CSK Auto Corporation, parent of the largest specialty retailer of automotive parts and accessories in the Western United States, uses MicroStrategy for enterprise reporting and analysis. Approximately 50 CSK Auto employees run loss prevention and vendor performance reports at CSK.

They are able to perform shrink analysis and track changes in inventory movement by region and product category. They also analyze product performance by vendor and store to enable more effective management of vendors.

MicroStrategy Reports
Sales Performance by
    Employee
Store/Regional Performance
Forecast staff
Overtime
Budget vs. Actuals
Best/Worst Stores by
    Performance
Best Employees
Fraudulent Employees
Employee-Processed Sales
    and Returns
Event Shortages
Sales per Labor Hour
Labor Cost Analysis
Call Center analysis

Customer Snapshot: Darden Restaurants
MicroStrategy currently anchors 12 business intelligence applications across 17 business areas at Darden Restaurants, the largest casual dining restaurant company in the world.

More than 250 financial and marketing analysts, operations and human resource professionals and executives use MicroStrategy to track, analyze and report on profitability and marketing promotions, guest satisfaction scores, employee retention, as well as perform market basket analyses, inventory, and scenario planning.

The human resources department at Darden will soon expand MicroStrategy's capabilities to provide analysis of employee turnover and to allow users to combine HR data with financial and other existing data.

"Being able to make these kinds of informed business decisions helps us add to our bottom line. We decided to expand our MicroStrategy deployment to include human resources because we wanted a single source of corporate data and reporting." - Heidi Metcalf, Senior Project Leader for Business Intelligence Systems, Darden Restaurants, Inc.

MicroStrategy Reports
Advertising Metrics
Sell Through
Customer Subscription
Entry/Exit Pages
Inventory/Delivery
Internet P/L
Vendor Subscription
Web Sales and Traffic
Store Cannibalization
    Analysis
Call Center Effectiveness
Customer Satisfaction

Customer Snapshot: The Men's Warehouse

"MicroStrategy has done for Decision Support what Lotus did for spreadsheets: they put the power to control the application in the hands of the end user." - Kevin Richardson, Director of Information Technology, The Men's Warehouse

MicroStrategy Reports
Working Capital/
    Cash Management
Accounts Payable/
    Accounts Receivable
Payroll Reporting
Risk Management
Insurance
Tax Management
Shareholder Metrics
Expense Management
Inventory Management/
    Carrying Costs

Customer Snapshot: O'Reilly Automotive
With MicroStrategy, O'Reilly Automotive has a consolidated, dynamic view for sales and financial analysis across its 1,011 stores. The company effectively monitors and manages inventory levels to improve product sales and company profitability.

"The retail industry is very competitive, and understanding and acting on corporate data are invaluable to staying ahead of the competition. We chose MicroStrategy's industrial-strength business intelligence technology for its ability to consolidate and present valuable corporate performance data in an easy-to-understand format, over the Web. MicroStrategy will improve our ability to track sales, merchandising, and inventory metrics. As a result, we'll be better able to identify revenue enhancement and cost reduction opportunities." - Greg Henslee, President, O'Reilly Automotive Inc.