Holland & Barrett outsources data handling to ITC Infotech
IT services firm ITC Infotech manages customer data for health food business to help it glean business value from the information
Health food business NBTY Europe has handed over the management of customer data to IT services firm ITC Infotech in an effort to use the information to support business plans.
The owner of retailer Holland & Barrett and manufacturer GNC-UK had already embarked on a major digital transformation in the face of increased competition. As part of this it realised it had to better understand its customers to support in-store and online modernisation.
“The retail landscape is extremely competitive and increasingly unforgiving,” said Chris Keen, chief financial officer at NBTY Europe. “Customer data plays a vital role in this strategy, enabling us to deepen engagement and improve sales with existing customers and create powerful campaigns to break into new markets and attract new regulars.”
NBTY wanted to relaunch its customer loyalty scheme to achieve higher quality data collection and customer insights. The loyalty scheme was limited by the scalability of the legacy IT system, including an inflexible point-of-sale system that made the loyalty process at the till difficult.
It wanted a single view of customers and needed to ensure it understood the behaviour of the growing number of customers shopping online to create a multi-channel marketing strategy. The company chose global IT service provider ITC Infotech for the project.
“Infotech’s track record of working with some of the biggest names in retail and beyond made it an obvious choice for a long-term partnership,” said Keen.
ITC Infotech created a new loyalty scheme that was geared around providing insight into individual customers. The Indian service provider integrated Oracle's Siebel CRM (customer relationship management) suite to create a data management framework over a six-month period.
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The new system enables enhanced engagement through real-time enrolment and activation, as well as flexible points earning mechanisms, making it much easier for customers to sign up and use their cards on a regular basis.
The system makes it possible for loyalty members to be identified and benefit from offers even without their card.
When in-store activation went live in April 2014, card activations increased by 70% per week. More than 11 million loyalty cards have now been issued, with a 40% increase in membership card activation.
Cards are now linked with 62% of sales and the use of vouchers has increased by 36%, with each voucher boosting customer spending by an average of 10%. Overall sales have increased by 6-8%.
ITC Infotech uses advanced analytics into customer behaviour to create actionable customer insights. “The new loyalty system began to deliver strong results almost immediately,” said Keen.
ITC Infotech continues to be NBTY’s intelligence specialist partner, leading its loyalty and analytics strategy, with all data handled in its internal network.
