Urban Outfitters standardises on Qlik for in-store reporting

Qlik has announced that Urban Outfitters, Inc. is standardising on Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS for in-store reporting, expanding access to near real-time data for store managers and associates in its 650+ store locations across EMEA and the US.

The roll out of Qlik’s cloud analytics will help Urban Outfitters, Inc. democratise in-store decision-making, with wider access to an array of dashboards and reports updated with fresh data every two minutes. The initiative will also consolidate three previously separate reporting locations into one central Qlik hub, creating efficiencies that will give employees back essential time to increase customer engagement and satisfaction.

“Our data strategy is centred on maximising the efficiencies and scalability of the cloud and whenever possible creating cloud to cloud synergies,” said John Devine, CIO of Urban Outfitters, Inc. “We already benefit from Qlik Data Integration feeding our Snowflake cloud data warehouse. With Qlik sitting on top of Snowflake, we can confidently scale access to more near real-time data for in-store employees. This will help improve store performance wherever our associates are in the world, while reducing the stress and costs associated with managing our on-premise data sources.”

Given the unprecedented disruption to the sector over the past year, leaders like Urban Outfitters, Inc. need to ensure every employee is aligned around in-store performance metrics and new purchasing patterns. Qlik is enabling access to relevant data for hundreds of associates that was normally only available to store managers, helping Urban Outfitters, Inc. move towards a fully data-driven culture through Active Intelligence. Now through one central Qlik location, every employee in each store can get up to the minute data on all aspects of the individual store’s KPIs, including things like inventory receipts, store conversions, exceptions analysis, and top 50 sales by store – and act on those insights immediately.

Especially important to Urban Outfitters, Inc. was the ability to quickly create reports. One such report is showcasing ‘last last year’ analysis, since data from 2020 isn’t reflective of current market conditions. As associates become more comfortable with data, and have new ideas for data insights and exploration, the Urban Outfitters, Inc. team will be able to develop and provide new Qlik apps in just a few hours to the entire global store employee ecosystem. The ability for store managers and associates to share unique views into current data in one location will help align individual store strategies for maximum flexibility and customised market conditions.

“Customers like Urban Outfitters, Inc. are leading the trend of leveraging the scale and power of the cloud to support their transformation to a fully data-driven organisation through data and analytics,” said Stephen Foster, SVP Americas at Qlik. “We look forward to continuing to partner with Urban Outfitters, Inc. to extend the power of real-time data with Qlik’s cloud analytics to every store in their ecosystem and activating data for impact.”

Urban Outfitters, Inc. is currently rolling out in-store analytics with Qlik across all its United States locations, with plans to continue the full roll out to its EMEA stores through June.