Interview Egbert Dijkstra (Ahold) “Pallas”, the comprehensive integrated Albert Heijn informational environment supports the total organization in its daily information needs. With over 3.000 regular users and 160.000 reports a week it’s known as one of the larger enterprise data warehouses in the Netherlands. In addition to supporting classical descriptive business intelligence (“what happened”), the focus now is on turning advanced analytics into a core capability.

A growing number of forward-thinking retailers have already recognized the power of analytics and are building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights. By using analytics to make better decisions and to extract maximum value from their business processes, retailers such as Tesco, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com are able to identify their most profitable customers, accelerate product innovation, optimize supply chains and pricing, and identify the true drivers of financial performance. On the European continent Dutch Retailer Albert Heijn is also recognized as becoming one of those analytical champions.

Analytics: the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact based management to drive decisions and actions. Using knowledge about the past to better predict the future enabling a company to take better actions today.

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