Smart & Final’s Digital Transformation

In its preparation for a post-pandemic marketplace, Smart & Final is taking a data-driven approach, rolling out Hypersonix’s AI-driven analytics platform to support the company’s enterprise analytics and digital transformation initiatives. The Los Angeles-based retailer recently completed a pilot program with the real-time intelligence and insights provider.

“Hypersonix is a key ingredient in leveraging actionable analytics that can be operationalized by our business teams as part of our ongoing digital transformation,” said Ed Wong, EVP and chief digital officer for Smart & Final, in a statement. “We established a great innovation-centric collaboration with Hypersonix, where we are finding new ways to address our needs in key strategic areas for our business.”

Built by former executives from SAP, PayPal and IBM, and funded by Intel Capital, San Jose, Calif.-based Hypersonix offers a cloud-based Unified Data Analytics Platform designed to ingest and integrate disparate data sources that reside in software applications from various vendors. These applications include point-of-sale, e-commerce, merchandising, marketing and inventory platforms.

“Smart & Final is clearly a shopper-centric and innovative retailer, and we are excited to partner with them,” said Todd Michaud, president and chief customer officer of Hypersonix, in a release. “As an increasingly data-driven culture, Smart & Final is leveraging our autonomous intelligence applications powered by robust data science and machine learning to enable profitable revenue growth.”

Hypersonix said it provides a 360-degree view on customer behaviors, localized product assortments and operational processes to support data-driven decisions to help retailers such as Smart & Final understand how various customer channels are doing while optimizing each channel to serve the rapidly changing needs of their online and in-store shoppers.

“Quickly turning insight into action is the key to success in today’s competitive retail environment,” said Joe VanDette, group VP of marketing for Smart & Final. “The accessible, conversational nature of Hypersonix’s platform allows our business leaders to leverage that insight directly, without the constraints typically associated with traditional data analysis.”

Hypersonix offers a simple “Google-like” user experience that it said supports non-technical users to harness data-driven insights without dependency on data analysts or information technology professionals.

Smart & Final’s leaders can use text or voice to quickly query their data on any device, including their computer, tablet or smartphone. The Hypersonix platform, regardless of the user device, has been augmented with a virtual intelligent decision agent named “Jarvix” that leverages the latest innovations in natural language processing.