Company: Shufersal
Industry: Retail
Time working together: 6 years
Company
Founded in 1958, Shufersal is Israel’s leading retailer. The chain has hundreds of branches across Israel, an average of 2 million weekly customers and 1.8 million customer club members; Approx. 13,000 employees from every population segment, religion, and ethnicity in Israel.
Challenge
Shufersal’s CDO Shirley Kagan’s background was originally in economics – but when she was tasked with building the leading retail chain’s data department, she knew it would be all about connecting business and technology. From the get go, Kagan looked for a consulting partner who would be involved deeply in the technology selection and implementation, hiring and training processes, and strategy – as well as being an active partner in building the department, positioning it in the organization and stirring it forward. As a large retail chain, the needs of Sufersal varied from making tools accessible, creating habits across very different departments and answering both online and offline needs.
Results
Kagan is now leading a robust and vibrant department – with over 80% of her staff being hired by BLeader. “The BLeader team already knows just the right blend of data and business orientation that is right for our culture,” said Kagan. While dashboards may not sound exciting, Kagan says that some of the most meaningful impact internally came from building dashboards that make data accessible for trade and branch managers. “
While Kagan and the executive leadership weren’t sure if creating data habits would be feasible in such a diverse organization, where so much of the work is offline – the CDO says they were in for a huge, positive surprise. “Trade managers are now proactively coming to us and asking for tools and models to address their needs. We went from gut feeling to data-based decision making,” says Kagan. Together with B Leader, Shufersal’s data department has built tools across customers, promotions, product availability/alternatives, product variety, cross-sell, and more. “We were able to build tools in house, saving costs and giving us the benefit of owning our own data.”
Some of the most impressive models that Shufersal now utilizes are predictive models. One of them predicts a customer’s LTV, enabling the customers’ club to decide what to offer them and creating a win-win for the customer and Shufersal. But it doesn’t stop there – Shufersal also utilizes a promotions prediction model, a dynamic pricing model, a product variety suggestion model and more. These models help the chain maximize and optimize shelf variety, online sales and so much more.
Top Value Adds
- Positioning the data department as strategic and helpful
- Creating trust across departments and functions
- Interviewing people about their needs and coming up with solutions
- Long term partnership that extends to hiring, coaching, and leading organizational initiatives
Working with the BLeader team is a true partnership. They’ve helped me build the data department from scratch and for the last 6 years have been there to guide and collaborate with us on everything from hiring to creating top notch predictive models and delivering strategic business results.
Shirley Kagan
CDO at Shufersal
