This article is brought to you by Taiga.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—We’ve all heard it before: Knowledge is power. With all the different technologies convenience retailers have at their disposal these days, there should be an abundance of knowledge about their operations. From loyalty members and payment methods to foodservice orders and basket size, retailers have a tremendous amount of data about what’s going on in their stores. But the sheer amount of raw data collected can be overwhelming. Add to that the time it takes for the raw data to get manually extracted and analyzed and by the time the insight gets back to the store, it may no longer be relevant.

According to Bill Ivers, CRO at Taiga, an analytics company serving c-stores, it’s important for retailers to understand that data, information and insights are not synonymous.

“These terms often get lumped together, but they all mean very different things,” said Ivers. When data is extracted from your existing systems, it is raw and hasn’t been cleaned or cataloged properly. Most importantly, it lacks context. “With raw data, you can’t easily see insights such as a comparison of sales from members of your loyalty program with non-loyalty customers. It’s an incomplete data set,” Ivers said. Once the data has been cleaned and cataloged, it becomes information. But in order to use information, you now must perform analysis.

Analysis allows you to turn basic information into insights. The way most convenience retailers are operating today, analysis is a painstaking process, with multiple steps and the creation of massive spreadsheets only to get to a single basic insight. Taiga’s goal is to eliminate the manual data processing and analysis so c-stores can get directly to insights with just a couple clicks. These insights give retailers the ability to make better decisions and have a bigger impact more quickly. “Actionable insights are detected by our AI in real time to identify issues and alert management or in-store staff to allow for a quick resolution. For example, we can detect when coffee sales are slow in a location during the morning rush and immediately alert a staff member to check the coffee area,” said Ivers.

“Transforming raw data into insights should be low effort,” he said. “IT departments are always stretched for time. Wouldn’t it be great if foodservice and category managers could access insights in just a few clicks without bothering the IT department?” Taiga’s cloud-based platform, processes and expertise help retailers become more data-driven and take action on that data quickly.

Learn more about Taiga’s platform in the Thursday, March 23 edition of NACS Daily.

This is the first installment of a two-part NACS Daily series on how convenience retailers can cut through the data clutter and create actionable insights. Learn more about Taiga by emailing info@taigadata.com or calling (888) 983-5874.