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Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

POSmart White Paper

Table of Contents

Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 Why Is Retail POS Data Important? .......................................................................................................... 2 POSmart Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 2 POSmart Benefits ......................................................................................................................................... 3 POSMart Application Architecture............................................................................................................ 5

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

POSmart White Paper

Overview POSmart automates the integration of point-of-sale (POS) demand level data and presents it back to business management in a graphic manner, allowing management to quickly and easily pin-point areas of increased potential and take immediate action to seize the opportunity. The same holds true for quickly finding areas of concern and taking corrective action before it becomes a problem. Successful CPG manufacturers and CPG merchandising companies believe their success relies on a thorough knowledge of their business by understanding and providing superior service to their retail customers. Such knowledge enables a business to be proactive, rather than reactive in their decision-making process, an essential ingredient to gaining a competitive edge. Access to quality information is a vital ingredient in making this happen. Without such information, identifying stock-outs, tracking sales and inventory, or forecasting customer demand can often rely on assumptions or erroneous data rather than facts. While Management may have the information to support their decision-making processes, no single source of customer point-of-sales information currently exists that integrates all retailers down to the SKU and store level until now. Large retailers such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, Lowes and Home Depot provide an abundance of information regarding their own environments. Other retailers provide only basic data. However, understanding demand level consumption for each retailer is a daunting task. The effort to compare product family sales across all retailers combined with historical data for trend analysis becomes a complex effort, as does answering basic questions such as, What are our top 10 products across all retailers?' or Which stores have not sold a product in the past 30 days that did sell it 60 days ago? or Show me year-over-year comparisons by month, quarter and product category allowing me to drill down into the product and customer hierarchy or Show me each retailers share of revenue and growth for each product category by week, month, quarter and year, allowing me to drill down to region/district, sales rep and store. Each of these seemingly simple requests requires a time consuming consolidation of information from numerous retail data sources. Some come in the form of EDI 852 files, others are in their own flat file format, while other retailers require you to create and download the file via the internet. The need to integrate internal data, such as shipments and forecasts, is also quickly becoming a valuable measurement for inventory management and product manufacturing. Shipshare is now the standard for comparing shipments to consumption. POSmart integrates POS data along with data from your internal systems, such as shipments. This allows companies to adjust forecasts based upon facts and not gut feel.

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

3/30/2006

POSmart White Paper

Why Is Retail POS Data Important? Imagine for a minute that you are the manager of a Super Wal-Mart store and you are in charge of customer satisfaction, store profitability and product placement. Wouldnt you give optimal shelf space and product visibility to products that sell best and have ample inventory? As a store manager, you take note that they are typically from manufacturers that have a solid understanding of demand level consumption (POS) and inventory management (shipments). POS data contains the information you need to understand what is happening at the retailer store and shelf level. However, you as the manufacturer, have the burden of trying to manage this at thousands of stores across many retailers. How are you going to gather all this information, ensure it is valid and not duplicate or incorrect data, consolidate it and make sense of it? Is there a way to automate the process so that most time is spent analyzing the information instead of gathering it, validating and consolidating it all? And how can historical data be included so that you can compare year-to-date results with prior years and understand long and short term product trends? POSmart Overview POSmart is a unique and comprehensive application consisting of 4 essential components: Visual Integration Studio for out-of-the-box data integration extractors for cleansing, validating and consolidating POS data from all retailer POS data regardless of the data format; POSmart Data Manager so that you can easily manage the environment through an easy to use interface; the POSmart database design for a time tested data model that is designed as either a stand alone data mart or integrated into your data warehouse strategy; and our BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal that allows all potential users, whether novice, executives or power users, easy and instant access to dynamic built in reports. POSmart supports all major database vendors so that you can use whichever database your company has standardized on. POSmart Visual Integration Studios cleansing and validation processes were built through years of experience implementing POS reporting solutions for major CPG manufacturers. All were dealing with the same dilemma: They can get the data in the raw formats from the retailers but the business users want it all integrated, consolidated and simplified with instant and easy access for proactive reporting and analysis. POSmarts validation processes are fully automated. For example, your items are cross referenced with retailer item numbers via an automated UPC cross reference process. Hierarchies are set up and completely maintained through pre-designed processes. Stores are automatically entered into the intelligent database as data flows through the validation processes. The entire process, beginning to end, is automated and customized to your unique business model.

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

3/30/2006

POSmart White Paper

POSmart Data Manager allows designated business users to edit data in the open systems POSmart database. For example, Wal-Mart may add a new store that needs to be reflected in the POSmart intelligent database. POSmarts validation processes will record the new store and all POS transactions and load them into the open database. However, you can use the browser based POSmart Data Manager Console to add additional information not found in the original POS transaction such as store size, store manager name, etc. In addition, POSmart Data Manager allows you to add new retailers, view all supported retailers, and edit dimensional fields such as product hierarchies and product descriptions. POSmarts analysis tool, the BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal, interfaces with the POSmart intelligent database. BlueSky is entirely browser based allowing you to get information to business users such as managers, field reps and executives any time and from anywhere. BlueSky supports record level security, report distribution, OLAP analysis and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) via its easyto-use, point-and-click highly graphical interface. If users are comfortable with portals such as Yahoo! and Google, then they will feel right at home with BlueSkys intuitive pointand-click graphical interface. POSmart uses Best Practices data mart/warehouse fundamentals within its open intelligent database. POSmart is also open to other business intelligence tools such as Cognos, Business Objects, Microstrategy, Crystal Reports and any other tool that can interface with a relational database, thus allowing you to leverage tools you may already be using. The POSmart intelligent database is optimized for Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and DB2. Knowing and understanding your customer, the retailer, is critical in gaining favorable shelf space. With POSmarts unique work-offline capabilities your sales reps and managers can show product performance at their finger tips through our interactive reports and provide buyers with immediate answers to their questions. They can now relate to buyers based on their terms and go in prepared to improve inventory turns and optimize shelf space.

POSmart Benefits The POSmart application provides CPG Manufacturers and CPG merchandising companies with an easy method to analyze their point of sales (POS) information. The key benefit of the application is its integration of all POS information provided by the various retail chains. Whether supplied via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or a propriety application such as
Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc. 3 3/30/2006

POSmart White Paper

Wal-Marts Retail Link, the information is transformed and consolidated into a common environment. End result being an integrated POS reporting and analysis application giving business users the ability to easily track retail sales and provide them with a competitive advantage that identifies consumer purchasing preferences and trends. The following identifies key features of the POSmart application:  Scheduled automated processes to transform and load POS transactions and supporting information such as retailer stores and items.  POSmart Data Manager provides the administrator a method to add and modify information within the POSMart application, without the need for IT resources.  Pre-designed and interactive reports specific to CPG and ready for business user analysis.  A consolidated database of POS transactional information designed for easy and fast access by the business users as either a stand alone application or integrated into an existing data warehouse strategy.  Ability for a novice to quickly and easily create powerful reports whether presenting to your internal management, retail buyers or retail management.  Support for all Retail Calendars and Retail Item Definitions for presenting the information to retailers in their terms.  Work-offline capabilities allow you to take the interactive reports with you when completely disconnected from your internal network.  A flexible architecture to allow easy accommodation of new retailers, stores, and items.  BlueSky Business Intelligence Portal, a web-enabled application to provide business users a method to easily analyze and track key POS measures, retailer and store level trends, and any type of consumption level reporting.  Integration into an existing data warehouse strategy or as a stand alone data mart. Either can feed other operational systems if required. POSmart delivers a total solution to support POS analysis and reporting needs across your organization and customer base.

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

3/30/2006

POSmart White Paper

POSMart Application Architecture

Prepared by Relational Solutions, Inc.

3/30/2006