Qlik rolled out across Fenwick’s department stores and business teams

Fenwick, which launched its first store in Newcastle in 1882, is known for premium shopping and dining, with categories across beauty, fashion, food and furniture. The company continues to seek ways to use data to increase efficiencies, support operations and boost performance. Fenwick required an intuitive, fast and cost-effective system, armed with the best governance and able to scale in line with the company’s ambitions.

As a long-term Qlik customer, Fenwick has progressed its data transformation journey and innovation with investment in Qlik Cloud in 2020. The deployment of Qlik Cloud has enabled Fenwick to advance its data management and analytics capabilities, which is enabling the company to:

• Empower business teams with access to real-time data and analytics tools. Qlik empowers staff across the Fenwick business to access a single, up-to-date, and accurate version of product and stock data, no matter their location. Users can build their own reports and share these with the community, driving more informed and quicker decision-making, with some team member saving 2-3 hours a day on reporting with Qlik.

• Improve stock transparency across the supply chain. The warehouse dashboard app allows teams to drill down into the 500,000 rows of stock data produced a day into a particular shelf or product held in the warehouse, enabling them to manage exceptions far more effectively.

• Optimize in-store customer experience to drive revenue. Improved analytics capabilities have also allowed store managers to optimize sales in the space they have available, tracking IoT devices that measure footfall to show teams where customers want to be in the store at a given time and enhance the overall customer experience.

• Embed a data-driven culture across Fenwick. By democratizing access to insights in real-time, Fenwick can not only manage but optimize its data, supporting future business growth and giving those on the shop floor through to the boardroom the confidence and alignment they need to face future challenges.

The move to cloud analytics is playing a key role in Fenwick’s continued innovation. While the chain’s online channel is growing exponentially, stores remain crucial to the brand, which aims to make the relationship between online and in-store offerings as seamless as possible. Developing collaborative apps across the business for effective visualization, reporting and joined-up decision-making is supporting this goal, so all employees can understand the data picture in real-time.

“For us, Qlik was the clear winner across the board, especially when it came to building apps and in terms of ease of use by end-users,” said Michael Laverick, Data Manager at Fenwick. “It’s also allowed us to provide a better experience for our customers because we’ve got trustworthy data behind the scenes, served up to decision-makers who can make the right choice about what needs to be on the shelves for customers to come in and buy.“

“In today’s challenging and unpredictable supply chain climate, there’s an ongoing need for retailers to prioritize agility, and data must underpin this for commercial teams to feel empowered to anticipate and support their customers’ needs,” said Adam Mayer, Director for Qlik. “We’re delighted to support Fenwick as it embraces the real-time, business-ready analytics that SaaS offers, so it can stay one step ahead to provide the best possible customer experience, no matter what disruption occurs.”