Retailers to push data out to staff

Retailers are leading the way in pushing decision support data out to non-IT users to maximise efficiency.

High street chains B&Q and Littlewoods, and US discount retailer ShopKo are among the first companies to use decision support software from Microstrategy and extending it to thousands of users through a form of push technology called DSS Broadcaster.

Mary Hope, analyst at researcher Ovum, said Broadcaster was particularly suited to retail-type environments, where it was useful to broadcast short messages to a large number of users. 'Microstrategy is not totally ahead in this field. Some Olap tools, such as Information Advantage, may have similar features, but Broadcaster's implementation is possibly better developed, and it goes out to more devices,' Hope said.

Darren MacManus, project manager at B&Q, the first UK beta test site for Broadcaster, said it would be 'a fundamental tool for the coming 12 months'. He added B&Q would be offering users 'targeted reporting, with information based on exception'.

'That way, they don't need to trawl through large paper-based reports,' he said.

DSS Broadcaster enables data extracted from a datawarehouse, using decision support tools, to be broadcast to large numbers of users and sent either by fax, email or voicemail. The system enables users to register the type of information they want from the system, the frequency they require it, and the mode of delivery.

Littlewoods went live last May with a web-enabled decision support system built on Microstrategy's DSS Suite.

ShopKo, and its subsidiary healthcare business ProVantage, will use the software to push retail information out to store staff, and healthcare information out to pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, doctors and patients.[qq] Joanne Wallen