Takeover candidate Safeway has an asset up its sleeve that circling bidders may not expect - sophisticated revenue management software that it believes has saved 'significant amounts' in its base pricing mix.
The claim came at last week's Revenue Management For Retailers (RM4R) conference in London - prior to the Competition Commission announcement - from Safeway UK commercial pricing director Tim Lawrence.
He outlined how the retailer decided to test the approach in order to simplify pricing processes, manage price and 'respond to competitors'.
Retail revenue management is a data-driven approach to identifying the best pricing strategies, combining electronic point of sale, customer purchasing and competitive data to provide suggestions for ideal prices.
Lawrence said that a key result of the initial pilot was that 'data refinement is the key to success'.
He explained that data 'holes' and inconsistencies had to be cleared out of Safeway's data to make best use of the KhiMetrics package.
The team also had to test the way the software challenged 'traditional thinking and pricing approaches'.
But Lawrence revealed that 'strong executive sponsorship' had helped to make the project a success.
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