Attaining Consumer Insights with Snowflake and Microsoft Power BI

For Retail & CPG firms, point of sale data is essential to understanding which products are selling, through which channels, and at what margin. However, since they do not own the last mile of the customer journey, reliable and timely sales insights are traditionally challenging to attain and often require retail, distribution or 3rd party data partners. 

In this hands on lab, learn how to access all relevant data from a single source and turn data into insights through the Microsoft PowerBI integration.

• Access first party data seamlessly in Snowflake
• Leverage the Data Marketplace to query live POS data from 3rd party providers
• Set up self-serve analytics via Power BI

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Situation: For Retail & CPG firms, point of sale data is their lifeblood. Retail & CPG firms need to use data to understand which products/SKUs are selling, through which channels, at what margin. Based on this information, Business unit leaders determine which products to sell, how to bundle, and place products across retail/eCommerce channels. Retail sales teams use this data to optimize in-store placements and local co-promotions with retail partners.

Challenges: Reliable and timely sales insights are traditionally challenging to attain for Retail & CPG firms. Since they do not own the last mile of the customer journey, they have to rely on retail, distribution or 3rd party data partners. These sources can be delayed, and hard to ingest and join in a single location alongside other key data sources. And often, data from various sources won’t match (e.g., inventory changes vs. iRi/Nielsen point of sale data).

Solution: The Snowflake Data Cloud enables Retail & CPG firms to access all relevant data from a single source. The Data Marketplace and data sharing with retail partners enables access to key data providers without the cost, risk, and latency of traditional data transfer methods. Through the Microsoft PowerBI integration, Retail & CPG companies can then query this data alongside internal data sources, providing faster time to insights. As a result, businesses can make smart pricing/promotion, placement and marketing decisions to accelerate sales and profit.