Co-op invests £1m in data warehousing

Food chain bolsters storage and processing capacity after merger with United Co-operatives

Angelica Mari, Computing 20 Nov 2008

The Co-operative Group is making a £1m investment in the overhaul of its data warehousing platform, intended to increase storage capacity and information processing power.

The group's current data warehousing set-up is nearing full capacity since the merger between Co-op and United Co-operatives last year, which boosted the number of stores to over 2,200.

In order to deliver the improvements to the merged business, the group's food retail information services closed a deal with Teradata, which is introducing a new production server that will more than double data processing capacity.

The new platform is expected to launch by the end of November. It will represent the core of Co-op's business intelligence strategy, and is expected to improve decision making based on customer shopping behaviour.

Co-op's disaster recovery facilities will also be in-sourced as a result of the agreement with Teradata.

"This new agreement puts the Group at the cutting edge of food store data capture and analysis, using the latest generation of data warehousing hardware, " said Mark Hale, director of food retail information services at The Co-operative Group.

"The agreement also highlights the continuing investment in all aspects of food retail information services by the group."

Earlier this year, Co-op made an investment of over £8m in an electronic point-of-sale system, and introduced a night-time energy saving programme for its tills which is expected to save 722 tonnes of CO2 and generate yearly savings of £120,000.

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