Improving Cost Efficiency of Chain Store Reporting in Norway Bjørn Are Holth (Statistics Norway)

Overview of the projects organisation at Stat. Norway Joint collaboration between: Statistical producers Department of Data Collection and Methods The project is managed by The Division for Data Collection Methods Division for Construction and Service Statistics Division for Price Statistics

The situation today: The Retail Sales Index (run by The Division for Construction and Service Statistics) Based on data collection where 145 chain offices reports for the stores within their enterprise We get information from about 13 500 stores all together Frequency of data transfer: Monthly Data collected: turnover, investments, together with info on the specific retail stores Data collection method: e-mail with an attached data file (Excel and other formats)

situation today cont… The Consumer Price Index (run by The Division for Price Statistics) Based on data collection where ca. 15 Chain Offices reports for a sample of stores within their enterprise We get information from about 370 stores all together Frequency of data transfer: Weekly Data collected: price, quantity and various descriptions of goods together with info on the specific retail store Data collection method: e-mail with the data as attachment (different formats: Excel and others).

situation today cont… Two main challenges with today's practice: Security – E-mail with attachments is not a secure method of data transmission Rather time consuming – around one man-year for the Retail Sales Index 50 per cent of this time is used to change the Excel data format by delivery to the data format required by the statistical production system. 30 per cent is spent on population management (changes in ownership, close-downs, new units, changes in addresses and industry codes etc.) 20 per cent is spent on checking and editing the responses Time used for handling the Consumer Price Index is still not precisely identified. Work in progress… Low cost efficiency

Cost Efficiency in data collection Quality Cost Efficiency = Cost Quality = Number and kind of errors detected during editing Cost = Hours spent to collect, edit and produce the statistics …. at Statistics Norway AND at the Chain Store Offices

How to improve Cost Efficiency? The reporting system will be moved to “Altinn” A common portal for enterprises reporting to All National Agencies in Norway, and which offers a secure encryption transmission protocol. We utilise this transition to a new transmission system to look more closely at the quality and time consumption of the statistics – cost efficiency.

What is Altinn? The goal for the initiators was to create a common web portal for public reporting, but throughout the years since the portal was launched in 2003, it has become so much more. Now, it also provides other electronic services such as the opportunity to receive messages from the public authorities as well as other services. The most used service in Altinn as of today is the opportunity private citizens have to hand in their tax-return electronically. In January 2011 there were 29 public agencies, three municipalities and one county municipality present as service providers in Altinn. In 2009 more than 440.000 businesses chose to do their statutory reporting through Altinn, and at that time over 700 different public forms were available in the web portal. For Statistics Norway, the transition to use Altinn for all, or at least most of our data collection, is very much “work in progress”…

Multi-Mode Communication System Metadata Management Editing A Norwegian illustration of how such a system could be built in practice. Some of the elements of this system is already in place. (Stove pipe thinking is often pointed at as a main modernisation obstacle. From our experience we will point at two other obstacles) Joint reporting system for all governmental institutions Not tailored exclusively for optimal data collection from NSI’s point of view… BLUE-ETS final Conference, 8 March 2013, Brussels 9

Strategies to improve Cost Efficiency Automating. “End user solution” An XML-reporting format is made available to the Chain Offices or the producers of administrative business tools This is a common metadata system that is linked to the Altinn system. Makes it possible to implement an automatic data capture functionality based on this XML-format into the enterprises systems, and hence data can be extracted automatically into Altinn and transmitted in a common format (XML) to Stat. Norway. Effect: reduced response burden and time spent on reformatting data.

Automatic data capture – “End User System” Stat. Norway creates a questionnaire and an XSD (XML Schema Definition) in SERES (Semantics Register for Electronic Services). This solution gives immediate feedback to the enterprises system of any faults in the data. Because the staff in the enterprise use their own local and familiar computer systems, little instructions is needed before use. Suppliers of the administrative business systems/tools in the Chain Offices have contact with Altinn and get their support from them. Altinn Chain store 1 Data reception SSB Chain store n Production system SSB

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Strategies cont… “Outsourcing” of edits and population management Implement error checks and additional questions particularly regarding changes in the number and kind of stores reported for. This is done by introducing a simple web questionnaire together with the file attachment: “Mixed mode design”. Computerize in-house activities Look for such solutions which can reduce manual editing and adjustments

Temporary solutions Our overall goal is to get all Chain Stores to use a fully automated submission using a XML-format, together with error checks in a attached web questionnaire. But that can/will take time… In the meantime we have the possibility to establish several other solutions for data collection that gives us a secure alternative to ordinary e-mail:

Alternative 1 - Attachments in Altinn We will use a standard Altinn web-questionnaire for uploading attachments All types of binary files can be attached (Excel, Word, picture formats etc.) This solution gives a secure alternative to e-mail using an encrypted (sftp) line, but gives no functionality beyond that. Altinn Chain store 1 Data reception SSB Chain store n Production system SSB 16

Example – Altinn w. attachment 17

Altinn attachment cont. The size of the attachment will be expanded to 200 Mb 18

Alternative 2 – SFTP directly to Stat. Norway SFTP solution directly between every of the 145 Chain Offices and SSB No possibility for checks before the data is loaded into Stat. Norway's production system. Data reception SSB Chain store 1 Chain store n Production system SSB

Status today: Conducted meetings and made agreements with the two largest Chain Stores in Norway: Rema 1000 (a cut of about 20% of the grocery stores) Norgesgruppen (ca 38% of the stores) Both have been very positive to our initiative and very co-operative Rema 1000 would like to go for a fully automated solution right away! Norgesgruppen are going to check out if they are able to apply an “end user solution” at this stage, but will for sure be able to participate in an automated “attachment solution” At the moment: we are in a queue for resources to get our questionnaires programmed and established in the Altinn system… In the meantime we are going forward with the statistical producers on how to optimize cost efficiency in their data production, together with arranging meetings with some of the other bigger Cain Stores and establishing agreements with them to participate in the project.

Questions?