Data mining boosts Jaeger profits

British fashion retailer Jaeger has used a new data-mining tool to achieve a return on investment (ROI) in just three months.

The company installed the IDM Software tool to identify potential fraudulent staff activity and internal procedural issues in its stores by merging and analysing electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) transaction information alongside other, more complex data streams.

Steve Hearn, Jaeger head of safety and security, said the tool had already triggered interesting and unexpected lines of enquiry that would not have been visible before.

"LossManager has been up and running for three months now and, not only have we uncovered fraudulent activity, but we have also identified numerous procedural issues that in the current economic climate, make a significant yet wholly unnecessary impact on the bottom line."

Hearn said the Jaeger audit team had obtained business-wide view of data and process risk as well as obviously fraudulent activity.

"The audit team have taken custody of the day-to-day management of data mining and have already driven significant savings and identified huge profit improvement potential well beyond any ROI calculations run at inception," he added.

Jaeger worked with the vendor to fully integrate the new tool with its complex data streams, including EPOS transaction, electronic article surveillance (EAS) and CCTV data.

Miya Knights

A 25-year veteran enterprise technology expert, Miya Knights applies her deep understanding of technology gained through her journalism career to both her role as a consultant and as director at Retail Technology Magazine, which she helped shape over the past 17 years. Miya was educated at Oxford University, earning a master’s degree in English.

Her role as a journalist has seen her write for many of the leading technology publishers in the UK such as ITPro, TechWeekEurope, CIO UK, Computer Weekly, and also a number of national newspapers including The Times, Independent, and Financial Times.