From hours of report-building to decisions in real time. How LotOK scaled analytics across 100+ stores

LotOK, a neighborhood grocery chain operating since 2011, replaced a slow, fragmented reporting process with BI dashboards now used across four departments. Reporting that once took longer to build than to read is now ready in two to three keystrokes.

• 100+ stores
• Ukraine
• Founded 2011
• Neighborhood grocery format

Highlights

• 2–3 Keystrokes to calculate any KPI — previously required multiple fragmented reports
• 4 Departments sharing the same data layer: planogram, ops, commercial, marketing
• Real-time dashboard results available chain-wide — once built, always live
• Minutes to calculate margin per product, store, or supplier. It was manual and slow before

Company overview

A growing neighborhood chain with complex multi-store operations

Founded in 2011, LotOK positions itself as the "favorite store next door.” The format is convenience-first: full-range grocery assortment, own-label production (bakery, deli, smoked goods, frozen semi-finished products), private import, and an expanding fast-food line covering pizza, hot dogs, sandwiches, ready meals, and hot beverages.

With 102 locations, the chain operates under meaningful logistical and analytical complexity: multiple store clusters, broad SKU depth, and operational decisions that need to move fast.

"My advice to new users: use your working time to analyze reports, not to build them."

Roman Ivanovych, Head of Analytics, LotOK

The challenge

Report creation consumed more time than the analysis itself

Retail demands precision. Before adopting BI, LotOK used a different analytics system, one that consistently made report generation the bottleneck. Teams spent the majority of their time building reports rather than acting on them.

• Slow reporting cycles
  KPI calculations for store managers and employees required manually assembling many separate, disconnected reports, a time-intensive process.
• Limited cross-team visibility
  Without a unified data layer, departments worked from different views. Aligning on numbers required coordination, not just a dashboard.
• Manual margin analysis
  Calculating product, store, or supplier profitability was a slow, manual process, not something teams could do on the fly.
• Reactive, not proactive
  Without real-time data, identifying and responding to issues in sales, planograms, or store performance lagged significantly.

The solution

One data layer used by four departments simultaneously

LotOK adopted a BI platform that brought together reports, custom dashboards, and a mobile app for field operations. The key shift: teams stopped building reports and started using them.

Core capabilities adopted across the organization:

• Sales plan tracking
• Basket analysis
• Hourly traffic analysis
• Planogram effectiveness
• Recommended shelf allocation
• Custom formula builder
• Custom dashboards
• Store Manager mobile app
• Connector for data integrations

The Connector tool enabled the team to test new data exchange configurations and significantly reduce deployment time. Custom dashboards are built once and deliver live results, no manual refreshes, no rebuilding.

For operations teams in the field, the Store Manager mobile app became a practical tool during store visits: managers can review financial performance by period, track key store metrics, and create tasks for stores when issues arise, all from their phones.

“Working with Datawiz BI allows us to focus on data analysis rather than report creation. Once a dashboard is built and configured, real-time results are accessible across the chain. Data visualization through graphs and numbers provides a comprehensive view of information.”

Roman Pavliuk

Head of Analytics, LotOK

Results

Faster decisions, shared metrics, fewer manual steps with Datawiz BI

• KPI calculation for store staff reduced from multiple fragmented reports to 2–3 keystrokes
• Product, store, and supplier profitability calculated in minutes, not hours
• Planogram and shelf allocation decisions backed by live data across all stores
• Hourly cashier load analysis enables more rational shift scheduling
• Four departments now operate from the same data layer — "speaking one language of numbers."
• Field teams can identify and assign store tasks in real time during visits
• Issues in sales, store performance, and supplier results are detected and addressed proactively

"Reporting in BI lets you detect problems on time and influence the situation to achieve maximum sales efficiency — by store, by product category, by supplier."

Roman Ivanovych, Head of Analytics, LotOK

Key insight

Shared vocabulary across teams changed how decisions get made

One of the less obvious but meaningful outcomes was organizational: when all departments — planogram, operations, commercial, and marketing — work from the same reports and dashboards, cross-team communication becomes more direct. Roman calls it "speaking one language of numbers." Disagreements about performance are grounded in the same data, not different extracts.

"The connection between departments became more productive. Shared settings allowed us to speak one language of numbers."

Roman Ivanovych, Head of Analytics, LotOK