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Google Play

Google Play optimized its value chain by using Trax Retail Execution

Google Play has three cash-based payment options also known as Forms of Payment (FOPs) available. These are physical Point-of-Sale-Activation (POSA) cards, Pin-on-receipt/SMS (POR) and Digital Codes. These products are the physical manifestation of the Google Play brand across 33 countries, over 1000 retailers and 936,000 store locations. To improve the customer experience and drive operational excellence, the Retail Excellence Initiative was formed. Its objective was to create a system to track brand execution for retail and with that data, diagnose root causes of poor availability and implement corrective actions quickly.

shelf health

150k

Stores provided with accurate in-store execution data

Analyze online data

Continuous monitoring

Allowed easy diagnosis of execution issues and identification of root causes

new product collection

+8pp

YoY improvement in availability across top 4 markets

The Challenge

For Google Play, FOPs are a non-inventoried item at retail. This means that neither the team nor the retailers have visibility into any availability data for these products. This makes availability challenging to track and replenishments difficult to implement accurately.

The results

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Transparency and accountability across partners

Google Play has a network of agencies in its markets contracted to audit and fix availability and presentation issues in-store. These contracted agents are equipped with the Trax image recognition app to ensure the integrity of the data collected. Working with Trax, Google Play developed a comprehensive KPI framework aligned with their four main “retail excellence” pillars: Global Standards, Measurable Operations, Analytical Insights, and Sustainable Improvements.

digitization

Diagnostic tools for improved compliance

Trax data powers Google Play’s internal reporting dashboards that enable regular monitoring of execution across the retail landscape. Google Play ingests the Trax data every 24 hours via our API and plug it into their centralized reporting system. By analyzing data at various granular levels, they can easily diagnose execution issues and identify root causes.

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Mark Steel
  • Director of Retail & CPG
  • Google Cloud

The partnership between Google Cloud and Trax is based on a shared aspiration to bring the best of technology to power digital transformation in consumer-focused organizations. Trax leverages Google Cloud investment into ML capabilities to bring this to life in the physical retail store.

The Bottom Line

For the very first time Google Play has been able to uncover conclusive evidence of execution and availability in-store at scale. The team has been able to focus on optimizing the entire value chain including partner ecosystems to maximize the potential of stores.

With Trax they are able to identify stores that show poor historical execution and focus merchandising efforts there. They are also able to identify larger issues like poor planogram compliance, missing fixtures or issues at certain locations and stores and work with their partners to address these issues at their root.

Visit Trax Retail Execution or contact us to learn more.

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