Eby-Brown Leveraging New BI Platform

PITTSBURGH -- Eby-Brown Co. is teaming with Management Science Associates Inc. (MSA) to gather information from its shipment data. The convenience store distributor has selected MSA's Gateway 360 (G360) business intelligence platform to transform its shipment data into actionable insights and alerts.

"Everyone knows MSA as a longstanding leader in the area of data management and analytics," said John Scardina, senior vice president of merchandising for Eby-Brown. "By bringing those best practices to Eby-Brown, we will advance our own go-to-market effectiveness and strengthen our partnerships with both suppliers and customers."

Eby-Brown will use G360 and related services to focus on reducing out-of-stocks; identifying gaps at the retail level for new items; and understanding and addressing differences within the independent convenience store segment.

"We are thrilled to support Eby-Brown in achieving their goals," said Suzy Silliman, senior vice president and managing director for MSA's Information Management Solutions Division. "MSA has built tremendous experience over two decades in transforming distributor shipment and complementary data sets into game-changing strategies and tactics for our clients. We look forward to bringing this experience to Eby-Brown's growth strategy and retailer and vendor relationships."

G360 is a third-generation application developed specifically for consumer packaged goods' sales and marketing users accessing large and integrated data sets. It offers complex functionality, complete flexibility and detailed access via ad-hoc querying as well as pre-formatted reports for consistent tracking of key performance indicators across different types of devices and users, including field sales.

"We chose MSA because their platform and insights enable us to immediately identify opportunities and solve business issues," Scardina added. "Understanding retailer data is a key enabler to minimizing out-of-stocks, improving promotion volume forecast accuracy and fine-tuning assortment decisions. With G360, we have an additional toolset to enhance our sales team's effectiveness in the market place."