Wesfarmers to step up data research

Dean Blake

6th Jul 2018

Wesfarmers Limited has requested expressions of interest for positions relating to its newly created Advanced Analytics Centre, signalling an increased emphasis on data-centric research.

Roles advertised include data scientists, data engineers and business translators, and will provide “the unique opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds across our retail businesses which include Bunnings, Officeworks, Kmart, Target and Blackwoods,” according to the notice.

The roles will focus on analytics opportunities in areas such as prediction, regression, machine learning and text mining in order to identify new opportunities for the business, and seem to show Wesfarmers is beginning to push its data capabilities across its catalogue of brands.

This follows the creation of the advanced analytics centre within the Wesfarmers business earlier this year, and the establishment of a larger and more focused business development team to help

Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott noted at the company’s recent strategy day that the flybuys loyalty program looked set to form the cornerstone of Wesfarmers digital and data efforts.

He explained Flybuys was a “significant opportunity” for Wesfarmers that would ultimately add value to its retail businesses in the coming years.

Managing director Michael Schneider spoke about expanding Bunnings data analytics unit to support more robust insights on ranging opportunities, and providing personalised advertising to customers.

“With our investments in data and analytics and leveraging our long-term supplier relationship we can tailor our offer to be even more relevant to our customers in the markets in which they operate,” Schneider said.

Schneider said the smart home market was potentially lucrative for Bunnings’ which could benefit from working with industry leaders to develop and retail a range of integrated solutions.