Weather and Retail

This news article caught my eyes today, Ace Hardware Hits the Nail on the Head Using Planalytics Business Weather Intelligence. It talks of Ace Hardware Corp selecting the Planalytics Business Weather Intelligence platform to measure and manage weather-driven demand influences throughout the chain. So many times we've heard, warm weather hurts sales or cold weather drives retail sales etc. From the news article,

"The weather has a significant impact on our business and it's vital that we are able to anticipate and plan for these events. Proactively managing weather means that we can mitigate upcoming risks and take full advantage of capitalizing on opportunities that we would not otherwise have been prepared for. The intelligence from Planalytics can be used throughout our supply chain to support more effective strategic plans, improved seasonal inventory management and better targeted marketing and promotional programs based upon weather-driven changes in customer behavior..."

Apart from the benefits mentioned above, there could be many more like better Workforce management, pricing changes etc. Another area which gets addressed is risks management in view of weather changes.