Maximising global retail and F&B sales through smarter data insights

Harnessing data and digital assets is essential to understanding and engaging customers. However, for businesses reliant on physical locations, particularly those with large portfolios of retail and food & beverage (F&B) outlets, this evolution presents challenges. These companies are limited by footfall, making it crucial to optimise every inch of space through informed decision-making. 

While closely linked, data and digital are separate tools for delivering optimised customer experiences. The former enables organisations to make better business decisions, whereas digital focuses on improving interactions with both customers and internal stakeholders. Data-driven insights help retailers understand customers and non-customers, strengthen partnerships and improve financial performance, while digital tools such as camera monitoring, heat maps and store digital twins represent ways in which data can be integrated in a way that leads to better decision-making. 

Many still struggle to convert this information into practical, value-generating applications, though. Disconnects between data and digital (D&D) teams and business units, often due to a lack of dedicated product managers, create further barriers. Without thoughtful analysis and the ability to understand what information assets are already available, even the most detailed data is little more than unused potential. 

The main challenges businesses face include: 

• A lack of understanding of data, which is more abstract than digital, and difficulties defining where the value lies in raw intelligence. 
• A need for diverse technical knowledge that can be difficult to find as roles such as data analysts, scientists, architects and engineers all require different skillsets. 
• Legal and compliance concerns, such as GDPR in Europe, that can result in overly risk-averse data governance. 
• Legacy system complexity, as integrating advanced analytics into old IT and technological resources without any scalability issues can be a huge challenge. 

One global giant with a broad retail and F&B presence in transportation hubs recognised these difficulties while seeking to maximise revenue generation. Despite having a strong digital toolkit, it lacked clarity on how data could contribute to performance or where gaps existed. Senior leaders sought external support after previous advisors failed to deliver meaningful change. They asked Hyphen to help build a clearer picture and unlock the full potential of their data. 

A cross-functional team of elite professionals was quickly formed to examine the client’s request from different perspectives. Our Co-Founder, Michael Savolainen, provided strategic oversight, while our Client Partnerships Associate Eleah Ketting handled day-to-day duties alongside three specialist consultants. Possessing significant experience in data and digital fields as well as proven leadership and management know-how, they each brought different skillsets that helped us devise a detailed and practical approach. 

Furthermore, to ensure our team had a rounded understanding of our client’s business landscape, we also drew on insights from seven subject experts from the worlds of retail, analytics, travel and compliance. This blend of knowledge ensured our recommendations were grounded in operational realities, adding invaluable context to the approach taken by our cross-functional team. 

Our analysis began with a review of the client’s existing practices to identify inefficiencies and opportunities. Alongside this, we implemented an engagement model built around four integrated workstreams:  

1. Defining a strategic narrative to highlight areas of value 
2. Examining existing and potential use cases to prioritise high-impact initiatives 
3. Assessing data readiness to assess the usefulness of existing information and the efforts to gather it 
4. Building a scalable operating model with long-term sustainability in mind. 

The client’s ambition was to become the most customer-centric and integrated operator in their field. To support this, we developed a practical framework anchored in three growth drivers: 

1. Understanding non-customer and customer behaviours and, to a lesser extent, broader patterns that include the actions of other non-customers who enter the retail environment. 
2. Creating superior and/or tailored retail experiences using data-led innovation to understand the habits of potential customers. 
3. Strengthening relationships with sector-related partners, including hubs, landlords and global consumer brands.  

More than 40 internal stakeholders collaborated with us to review current projects and generate new use case ideas. Together, we assessed each initiative based on its potential value and feasibility. While the D&D team were initially wary of external input, our practical, structured process helped win them over. 

To maintain focus, we created a refined set of high-impact use cases to form a pilot portfolio. We also examined the consistency, quality and availability of data across key domains, including customer, transaction, product, location and vendor data. Although retail data was relatively mature, F&B data presented opportunities for improvement. 

By highlighting gaps and aligning stakeholders on next steps, we helped create a more coherent and insightful data environment. Our team also designed a future-ready operating model to support ongoing delivery. 

We introduced clearly defined roles, such as data strategy leads, privacy and compliance officers, and local analysts, while also building new structures for governance, prioritisation and cross-functional collaboration. A central tool was co-developed to monitor both established and trial initiatives, measure progress, and enable the scaling of successful outcomes across locations and teams. 

The strength of our combined team, along with expert insights, allowed us to challenge assumptions, sharpen strategic thinking and deliver recommendations that were both commercially sound and practically achievable. 

We prioritised three pilot projects that we believed would deliver the greatest benefits to the client. Aspects of these initiatives included looking at dynamic pricing applications, linkages between digital twins and the reviewing of data sources, and the possibility of cross-selling across revenue streams.  

If successful, the main impacts of these initiatives will be: 

• More effective store operations 
• Better, context-driven modelling 
• More productive brand partnerships. 

In terms of a quantifiable business benefit, some of the initiatives we appraised could deliver annual value that go into nine figures. 

Beyond financial potential, this project marked a breakthrough in cross-functional collaboration. Initial scepticism from some internal teams quickly gave way to trust and support. By the end of the engagement, the client’s D&D personnel were even advocating for continued collaboration with our team for future phases. The operating model we delivered also supports clear role definition, the ongoing prioritisation of value-adding initiatives, and has embedded feedback loops. 

These efforts are expected to deliver a significant and measurable boost to sales per person entering each hub, conversion rates, and brand investment, while also making the retail experience better for customers. The impacts stretch around the world, with more in-depth information gathering and improved analysis enabling leaders to make smarter decisions at local, national and global levels. 

Thanks to the dedication of the core team and our expert contributors, data and digital are now operating in sync. All of this work means our client is well-positioned to evolve into a truly integrated, data-native enterprise and maximise revenue opportunities.