Family Dollar achieves success with SAS Merchandise Tool

03 Feb '09

3 min read

Family Dollar, a Fortune 500 retailer with more than 6,600 stores and $6.8 billion in annual revenues, is in the midst of “Project Accelerate,” a three-year transformation that ultimately will lead to a better shopping experience for customers, improved productivity of its inventory, and enhanced efficiency in its supply chain. At the heart of Family Dollar's transformation are merchandise planning applications from SAS, the leader in business analytics.

“We view our relationship with SAS as one of our most strategic partnerships,” said Mike Laurenti, Vice President of IT Solutions and Delivery for Family Dollar. “We made a conscious decision to work only with best-in-class companies as we began transforming Family Dollar. SAS is the leader in this space, and their applications are key to helping Family Dollar achieve success in our key initiatives.”

To power Project Accelerate, Family Dollar invested in software from the SAS Merchandise Intelligence suite including SAS Merchandise Financial Planning and SAS Merchandise Assortment Planning. More than 100 Family Dollar employees began using SAS Merchandise Financial Planning in August 2007. The retailer has initiated a roll out of SAS Merchandise Assortment Planning that will continue throughout 2009.

“SAS enables the Family Dollar merchandising organization to quickly create integrated merchandise financial plans we can share and adjust collaboratively on an almost real-time basis,” said Scott Zucker, Vice President of Merchandise Operations for Family Dollar.

“With the current economy, it is important for us to make inventory adjustments quickly to minimize 'discretionary' risk and maximize 'basic needs' opportunities,” said Zucker. “During 2008, the SAS Merchandise Financial Planning solution enabled us to adjust our merchandise assortments much more quickly than in the past. This allowed us to make immediate investments in the consumable categories that our customers need most during these difficult times. Our strong fourth quarter results from June to August in 2008 reflect this mix shift away from more discretionary merchandise.”

To nimbly leverage the eight terabytes of data underpinning Family Dollar's transformation, the retailer chose to deploy the applications on a powerful Windows 64-bit platform with a distributed architecture. The platform provides Family Dollar with needed flexibility and scalability combined with significantly reduced overall deployment costs.

In addition to Family Dollar, SAS retail customers include AutoZone, Bakers Footwear, Brooks Brothers, Burger King, Cabela's, Carrefour, Casino, Casual Male, The Children's Place, Eddie Bauer, Hallmark, Hudson's Bay Company, JCPenney, Kohl's, Luxottica Retail, Macy's, Mark's Work Wearhouse, Marks & Spencer, Northern Tool & Equipment, Office Depot, Sainsbury's, ShopKo, Sport Chalet, Spiegel Brands, Staples, Tesco, Tween Brands, Waitrose, Williams-Sonoma and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM.

Operating small store locations, Family Dollar is one of the fastest growing discount retail chains in the United States. Family Dollar offers a core assortment of name brand and quality consumable merchandise supplemented by fashion and seasonal merchandise at everyday low prices.

Beginning with one store in 1959 in Charlotte, N.C., the company currently operates more than 6,600 stores in 44 states. Family Dollar, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, is based in Matthews, N.C., just outside Charlotte and is a publicly held company with common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FDO.

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