Fourteen branches, one truth: retail intelligence at Unity
Illustrative case study · Client details and outcomes await verification. Live analytics and AI-driven reordering turned month-old reports into daily decisions — and freed a warehouse of dead capital.
What changed
The starting point
Unity's head office learned how branches performed weeks after the fact, from manually consolidated spreadsheets. Fast sellers ran out while slow stock accumulated; shrinkage appeared only at stocktake, unexplained.
Buyers ordered on instinct and supplier pressure. Nobody could say which branches, categories or items actually made money after markdowns and losses.
What we built
HLM Analytics connected every branch POS and the central warehouse into one governed data model, refreshed hourly. Dashboards show sales, margin, stock cover and shrinkage variance by branch, category and SKU.
Demand forecasting models now generate reorder suggestions per item per branch, with buyers approving exceptions instead of building orders from scratch. Daily WhatsApp flash reports reach every branch manager at 7am.
How the rollout ran
Phased, transparent, and designed to earn trust at every gate.
Weeks 1–2: Connect & model
POS and warehouse systems connected; governed metrics defined with finance so numbers reconcile.
Weeks 3–5: Dashboards live
Executive, buying and branch dashboards rolled out; daily flash reports automated.
Weeks 6–10: Forecasting & reorder
Demand models trained per category; automated purchase suggestions piloted in two branches.
Weeks 11–14: Chain-wide rollout
Reorder automation extended to all fourteen branches with exception-based buying workflow.
Illustrative quotation · not a verified testimonial
“Our buyers used to argue opinions; now they argue about what to do with facts. The dashboard settled a decade of debates in its first month.”Managing Director
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