Urban Outfitters turns to cloud analytics

Clothing chain Urban Outfitters is rolling out new cloud analytics technology

Urban Outfitters is using Qlik Sense to democratise in-store decision-making, with wider access to an array of dashboards and reports updated with fresh data every two minutes.

The initiative will also consolidate three previously separate reporting locations into one central Qlik hub, creating efficiencies that will give employees back essential time to increase customer engagement and satisfaction.

“Our data strategy is centred on maximising the efficiencies and scalability of the cloud, and whenever possible creating cloud to cloud synergies,” said John Devine, CIO of Urban Outfitters. “We already benefit from Qlik Data Integration feeding our Snowflake cloud data warehouse. With Qlik sitting on top of Snowflake, we can confidently scale access to more near real-time data for in-store employees. This will help improve store performance wherever our associates are in the world, while reducing the stress and costs associated with managing our on-premise data sources.”

Purchasing

Given the unprecedented disruption to the sector over the past year, retailers like Urban Outfitters need to ensure every employee is aligned around in-store performance metrics and new purchasing patterns.

Qlik is enabling access to relevant data for hundreds of associates that was normally only available to store managers, helping the retailer to move towards a fully data-driven culture through Active Intelligence.

Now through one central Qlik location, every employee in each store can get up to the minute data on all aspects of the individual store’s KPIs, including things like inventory receipts, store conversions, exceptions analysis, and top 50 sales by store – and act on those insights immediately.