Century Martial Arts predicts with Microsoft Dynamics
Oklahoma City, Okla. – In a Sept. 23 webinar hosted by Chain Store Age and sponsored by Microsoft Dynamics and Junction Solutions, marital arts training equipment retailer Century Martial Arts explained how by using a Microsoft Dynamics AX business intelligence platform, it is able to better track trends and predict future performance. (Click here to view the recorded version of the webinar.)
Paul Webb, VP technology Century Martial Arts, said that by working with Dynamics AX business partner Junction Solutions, his company has obtained the scalability and flexibility needed to keep up with its rapid growth.
“We view business intelligence is a competitive advantage,” said Webb. “We’re looking for more ways to use predictive analysis.”
Specifically, Century Martial Arts is using a Dynamics AX-powered merchandise trends system (MTS) to track merchandising trends in near-real-time to capitalize on what is going well and make adjustments to what isn’t going well. The retailer also evaluates the impact different merchandise margins would have on performance and examines how to capture more market share in different martial arts disciplines and product lines. Century Martial Arts is currently in its second version of MTS and will review the solution for further enhancement after the holiday season.
George Casey, CTO and chief marketing officer Junction Solutions, said business intelligence is a “game changer” that can segment customers by demographics such as age and gender, as well as behaviors such as purchase history and social media activity, and cluster them to see what percentage of total customer base they represent and what products they likely prefer.
“We are also looking toward aspirational capabilities such as location analytics for proximity marketing and natural language processing (NLP),” said Casey. According to Casey, NLP can help retailers determine metrics such as which employee works the most hours, as the word “work” can have many different meanings and contexts.