Case Study
Premier Foods: Data Analyst Identifies Sales Growth Opportunities by Optimising Product Ranging
Steffan Willetts
Learner profile
Steffan Willetts is a Data Analyst within the supply chain team at Premier Foods, one of the UK’s largest food producers.His team's primary focus is on product forecasting of baked goods for well-known British brands across the country including Mr Kipling and Cadbury Cakes. As part of Steffan’s role, he provides the team with as much insightful data surrounding product demand as possible. The team can then use this data to conduct the most accurate forecasting of baked goods required by customers all over the country.
Results
Optimised product ranging
by analysing store-level sales data.
Potential improvement in sales revenue
by expanding high-performing offerings.
Proposed new software
to widen the scope of data analysis with other customers.
Seeing the potential for data analytics skills
Before Steffan started his apprenticeship with Cambridge Spark, the team at Premier Foods had access to large amounts of data but weren’t exploiting it to its full potential.
By completing the apprenticeship Steffan was able to upskill in Python, Pandas and SQL, enabling far more efficient analysis of larger datasets such as store-level sales data.
The resulting insights have enabled him to implement transformative projects for the company that are not only transforming the way Premier Foods uses data but also improving how their customers make forecasting decisions in the future.
I’ve gained a lot of new skills and knowledge in a relatively short amount of time that’s enabled me to provide a lot of insight and benefits to the team already. The plan for the future is to further build on what I’ve learned already by completing a higher-level apprenticeship.
Steffan Willetts, Data Analyst at Premier Foods
Optimising product ranges
Premier Foods’ customers will periodically carry out range reviews of their products. Historically, the team would make recommendations to customers based on emerging sales trends and market research, also taking store size and available shelf-space into consideration. Now with the right analytical skills, Steffan is able to add greater granularity to the analysis, identifying products that have varying rates of sale across the country, enabling the team to further optimise product ranging.
For instance, a product might be performing very well in stores in a certain region but is only ranged and available in a small number of that region’s stores. Thanks to Steffan’s work since starting his apprenticeship, the team at Premier Foods can now make more data-driven decisions about which products to offer at their customer’s specific stores. This product range optimisation has the potential to both increase sales and minimise waste.
To anyone out there thinking that there’s a job they want to do, but they haven’t got the right qualifications, I’d say have a look to see if there’s an apprenticeship for it. I didn’t think that i could get into data analysis with my background, but i found an apprenticeship that’s enabled me to move into that career path.
Steffan Willetts, Data Analyst at Premier Foods
Democratising data insights with interactive dashboards
After using his new skills as an analyst to identify opportunities to improve Premier Foods’ product ranging, Steffan put his insights in front of the teams that needed it by building interactive dashboards. These dashboards helped communicate his findings to technical and non-technical stakeholders alike, empowering other teams with decision-making informed by data.
Widening the scope of data analysis
Looking ahead, the data analysis work Steffan is conducting is opening the conversation to even more new ideas. The team are starting to see how using new skills and software could help them do even more with their data.
The aim is to use these tools to improve how they serve their customers and make smarter business choices based on solid data, showing Premier Foods’ dedication to better service and data-backed decisions.