BI Helps böhme Sales Boom

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

September 2013 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

Just five years in business, böhme credits 15% sales growth to a new business intelligence (BI) software application.

Talk with Vivien Bohme today, and you’d think you’re chatting with the Brazilian female version of Terry Lundgren. Bohme is an energetic, articulate, easily excitable, and very intelligent woman who knows nothing if she doesn’t know retail. She’s also co-founder of böhme, the boutique-style fashion chain she started with her sister Fernanda back in 2008. In that short period, böhme has blossomed to 17 stores — with five more under construction — and 204 employees supporting nearly $20 million in sales.

Hard to imagine that just five years ago, Vivien and Fernanda were staring down the barrel of a disastrous recession, contemplating how to get this thing off the ground with just $20k in credit and a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt. But these are no average entrepreneurs. The Bohme sisters’ knack for knowing what sells — and what doesn’t — isn’t blind luck or intuition. They figured out the importance of data analysis very early on, and made it a central discipline in their retail practice. “What’s our secret sauce? We are a numbers-obsessed company,” confides Vivien. Unfortunately, the numbers she obsesses over weren’t easily accessible, which often made getting and sharing them an exercise in frustration.