I think Tableau has helped open up the organization quite a bit. Now we are much more open and we're actually spreading information much more freely than we did before.
The Magnum Group is the leading pharmaceutical retailer and wholesaler in the Baltics, operating and franchising over 200 pharmacies. In the Estonian pharmaceutical market, competition is high and shelf space is limited—getting product stocked in premium supermarkets comes at a premium price. The Magnum Group wanted to improve decisions such as product placement, but limited business intelligence resources meant that information was closely-held within the senior management team. In this video, Business Development Project Manager, Alo Arro discusses how Magnum is now using Tableau to—among other things—make the most of their investments in shelf space. They are blending sales data with shelf layout specs from their operational systems to identify trends and differences between pharmacies. And data is now used across the company, helping people outside the senior management circle. Today, Tableau dashboards have helped The Magnum Group improve retail layouts and come up with a new store concept that is being rolled out across two countries.
Tableau: Can you tell us about the Magnum Group? Alo Arro, Business Development Project Manager: I come from Magnum, which is the leading pharmaceutical wholesaler and retailers in the Baltics. We operate roughly 200 pharmacies of our own, and a couple of hundred franchises. Tableau: How did you get started with Tableau? Alo: My first Tableau analysis or Tableau visualization was a test of the hypothesis or a test of a proof of concept that we should tie our profitability data, heightened profitability data, and relate that to the amount of space we allocate to different product groups at our pharmacies. The amount of shelf space we have at premium locations is one of the biggest constraints we have. The competition among pharmacies is huge in Estonia. It's a ridiculous amount of money we have to pay to get into a premium supermarket. So the ability to use the space efficiently is, I think, quite crucial. Tableau: How did Tableau help you dig deeper into this issue? Alo: We pulled together our sales data or profitability data, and we pulled together our shelf layout specification, basically a few Excel files or CSV extracts from the operational systems, tied that together, added a couple of charts to see trends and differences between pharmacies. We got amazing insight from that and actually it started or help start a completely new initiative of renovating or renewing all of our pharmacies. We have actually developed a whole new pharmacy concept, which is now being implemented all over Estonia and Latvia, and this analysis was major input into that development. Tableau: Have there been any outstanding moments with Tableau? Alo: A real wow moment I think with Tableau was actually to see people growing from the organization and becoming Tableau analysts or Tableau developers. Tableau: Has there been a difference before and after Tableau? Alo: I think Tableau has actually helped open up the organization quite a bit. Before we had Tableau, most of the information was basically kept only through the senior management team. So I think now we are actually much more open and we're actually spreading information much more freely than we did before. And you have to keep in mind that we are an organization with no BI capabilities. A year and a half ago, we have no data warehouse, no BI team, and even no idea of what you can do with modern BI tools. So it really has been quite quick for us.