December - 20199MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSpromotional and sales efforts, and order forecasting. Comparing purchasing data to POS data (purchases in vs. sales out) will offer great insight to customer behavior in this rapidly changing selling environment, while delivering more value to customers by offering analytics around how to optimize inventory levels and other KPI's. It is also worth noting that when you're able to explore POS data, you will find unexpected areas of enlightenment including enhanced seasonality or weather trends, sales spikes around previously unrecognized events such as sporting events, the influence of social media campaigns or influencers, equity market movement, housing trends and more.Challenges and Solutions to Utilizing POSWhile the value that POS analytics can provide to manufacturers is becoming more and more apparent and embraced, be prepared for challenges. For instance, some distributor partners may be hesitant to share POS data, believing that it's "their data." They may be concerned that you may use it to sell around them or that you may share it with their competitors. With a solid conversation explaining what you, as their manufacturing partner, will, and will not, do with the POS data, and how you will both benefit from using the data, oftentimes those concerns will subside.Another challenge that can be common is finding the right resources to take on this project. When gathering POS data from various distributors/retailers it is expected that each data set will have its version and format. This leads to the need to transform the data from its original format to a common format and terminology, which can be used for analysis. In the past, it was true that doing this required highly technical coding skills, which oftentimes were not feasible for many organizations. However, in recent years, through advances in software programs, this is no longer true. There are several robust ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) programs (i.e., Alteryx) that allow you to input the data in its raw form, manipulate the format, combine multiple data sources, and either do in-program analytics or output one clean dataset which can be analyzed by other programs. The rise of data visualization programs (i.e., Tableau) has also allowed companies to create dashboards and visualizations that are easily understood, repeatable, and interactive.The Future Value of POSThe importance of POS data will grow exponentially in the coming years, both for manufacturers as well as distributors/retailers. With the continued trend of consumer purchasing methods and the evolving way retailers & distributors handle this, it is more important than ever for manufacturers to have a deep understanding of where and how their products are bought while partnering with retailers &distributors to grow the overall business. POS data will prove to be critical to the success of our products and companies going forward. If you're not taking advantage of POS analytics currently, now is the time to get familiar with it and understand its power. Over the next few years, the most successful manufacturers will engrain POS analytics in their standard business practices
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