Reitan Convenience Sweden: Using the power of data to make shopping easier
About Reitan Convenience Sweden
Reitan Convenience Sweden operates three major convenience store brands all over Sweden—Pressbyrån, 7-Eleven, and PBX. Every day, more than 450,000 people use one of its 400 stores. The company is part of Reitan Retail.
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Reitan Convenience Sweden wanted a clear overview of its data landscape to make more informed insights and give its customers an even better service, so the company took back control of its data with Google Cloud.
Google Cloud results
- Reitan Convenience Sweden has taken back control of its data, giving it better, more detailed insights into customer behavior
- Supply chain-efficiency has improved
- Reitan Convenience Sweden can now optimize on-shelf inventory tracking, making sure it has the products that customers want in stock
Data-driven decisions improve the shopping experience
Everybody knows their local convenience store. They're familiar, reliable, and somehow comforting. A place you can pop into for a late night snack, that essential ingredient you need for your favourite meal, or just a carton of milk. Reitan Convenience Sweden understands exactly why the convenience store matters to so many people. The company is part of Reitan Retail, which opened its first convenience store in Trondheim, Norway in 1948.
Post-pandemic, the retail sector is facing some tough challenges. From high inflation to rising energy prices, many businesses have had to reassess their strategies, be agile, and adapt. For many retailers, technological innovation has been the answer. The retail sector is often at the forefront of new advances in tech, whether that's self-checkouts or contactless payments. But there's a lot more behind each swipe of a barcode—data. Lots and lots of data. And the quality of your data can help drive better insights and more focused business decisions. The best shopkeepers know what their customers want. And when.
But the better your data, the more hackers want to steal it. Security is crucial to the convenience store industry. Lose the trust of your customers, and they'll find somewhere else to shop.
Franchise owner Reitan Convenience Sweden has been exploring how tech can help its range of convenience store brands—Pressbyrån, 7-Eleven, and PBX—offer the best customer service and stay relevant. But it's always made sure it puts security first. That's why it has developed such a strong relationship with Google Cloud.
Making data work harder for every store
Reitan Convenience Sweden started its journey with Google solutions by adopting Google Workspace in 2014. Devoteam helped the company implement Workspace, and it's now an essential part of day-to-day working life for employees. The company's success with Workspace naturally encouraged it to explore further solutions.
Reitan Convenience Sweden wanted to take control of its data. Part of using data effectively is simply knowing what to do with it. There are so many things that you need to consider when running a store, from getting the right stock at the right time to knowing how to price some products more competitively. Good data can give you the insights you need to make better business decisions. But Reitan Convenience Sweden was spending a lot of money on other companies to analyze its data, and was struggling to get a unified picture of its data landscape.
"We had dreams, but we couldn't make them real. There were always hurdles, the data was always somewhere else, and we didn't have a DevOps team to put the data together and make use of it," says Pär Nilsson, IT Architect, Reitan Convenience Sweden.
Nilsson has worked for Reitan Convenience Sweden since 1999, and has seen how tech has developed and informed business decisions over the last two decades. He knew that taking control of the company's data was key to fulfilling its ambitions. "Our focus is on providing a seamless omnichannel experience by integrating our physical stores with online platforms," says Nilsson. "We want to use data analytics to personalize our offers and enhance customer engagement."
So Reitan Convenience Sweden made the move from its traditional hosting partners to Google Cloud in 2018, beginning with its master data and APIs, before shifting its infrastructure over in 2021. The move opened up some big opportunities to understand customer behavior using BigQuery.
"Our focus is on providing a seamless omnichannel experience by integrating our physical stores with online platforms. We want to use data analytics to personalize our offers and enhance customer engagement."
—Pär Nilsson, IT Architect, Reitan Convenience SwedenExtracting invaluable insights from a data goldmine
"We have an analytics team that works only with the data within BigQuery, and they're working to figure out the best decisions for the business. We are sitting on a goldmine of information, and it's up to us to make good use of what we have," says Nilsson.
BigQuery is a serverless enterprise data warehouse that scales data, and can respond to business events in real time with event-driven analysis. Built-in streaming capabilities automatically ingest streaming data and make it immediately available to query.
"We have an analytics team that works only with the data within BigQuery, and they're working to figure out the best decisions for the business. We are sitting on a goldmine of information, and it's up to us to make good use of what we have."
—Pär Nilsson, IT Architect, Reitan Convenience SwedenReitan Convenience Sweden employs BigQuery across three main areas of the business: inventory optimization, digital marketing, and customer experience. BigQuery allows the company to optimize on-shelf inventory tracking and supply chain efficiency, helping it stock what customers actually want. The company's marketing team can use the data from BigQuery to produce personalized ad campaigns across a range of channels, while getting more insights about customers' behavior. And finally, the company has managed to unify its customer data using BigQuery, which helps it provide a more focused customer experience.
But BigQuery is just one key part of the Google Cloud infrastructure that has been put in place at Reitan Convenience Sweden. The company also uses Cloud Run to implement its container orchestration. And Pub/Sub in combination with Cloud Functions, which ingests analytic events and streams them to BigQuery, is now used for event-driven messaging.
"These solutions are helping us achieve greater scalability, flexibility, and real-time insights, empowering us to make data-driven decisions and improve operational efficiency," says Nilsson.
Investing in security
Data is a precious commodity, and if it's lost through a hack or lax security, then the consequences can be devastating for any business. That's why Reitan Convenience Sweden is investing in Google Cloud security measures.
The company is now using Google Cloud Armor to help keep its data safe from attack, alongside measures such as multi-factor authentication. Cloud Armor provides predefined rules to help defend against attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection (SQLi) attacks. Having a clear overview of the company's data has also increased security.
"Before, we struggled because data lived in different systems and areas. But now what we have is very visual, accessible, easy, and we have a clear idea of our environments and components. That level of transparency supports security itself," says Nilsson.
Enjoying the orchestra in full flow
Making the move to Google Cloud has been a big step for Reitan Convenience Sweden. But it has opened up a huge range of possibilities for the company. Now it has more control and visibility of its data, it can innovate faster, helping its store owners really know what their customers want. "Since we moved to Google Cloud, we have a shorter time to market, and can do a lot of things we couldn't imagine before," says Nilsson. "Before, the process took so long that even if someone had an idea, it took too long to make the product. But now, whatever it is, we can put it in production quickly and try it out because we control our data in a different way."
But the story doesn't stop there. Reitan Convenience Sweden is keen to explore more Google Cloud solutions, particularly in artificial intelligence and machine learning. As the retail landscape continues to evolve the company aims to stay one step ahead with Google Cloud.
"Google Cloud is like an orchestra," says Nilsson. "The solutions are essential on their own, but it's the variety of products put together that makes a difference."
"Google Cloud is like an orchestra. The solutions are essential on their own, but it’s the variety of products put together that makes a difference."
—Pär Nilsson, IT Architect, Reitan Convenience SwedenTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Reitan Convenience Sweden
Reitan Convenience Sweden operates three major convenience store brands all over Sweden—Pressbyrån, 7-Eleven, and PBX. Every day, more than 450,000 people use one of its 400 stores. The company is part of Reitan Retail.
About Devoteam
Devoteam is a leading consulting firm focused on digital strategy, cybersecurity, and business transformation.