Why Data Infrastructure Should Be Your Next Technology Investment

06/30/2025 | Comment

The ROI of Data Infrastructure: Hidden in Plain Sight

“What’s the ROI of your system?”
It’s one of the most common questions we hear.

The honest answer is: the returns are real—but often invisible at first glance. They’re buried in the hours your team no longer spends writing SQL queries, manually reconciling reports, or prepping Excel sheets and Power BI dashboards.

And yes, we help our customers make smarter, faster decisions that improve store performance. But tying those results directly to a single platform is tough. Was it the new system that lifted performance? Or some other initiative?

This uncertainty causes many organizations to delay investing in foundational data infrastructure. If the current setup delivers “good enough” reports and your team can cobble together what they need, why prioritize something new?

AI Changes the Equation

Artificial intelligence has changed everything.

New tools are entering the market rapidly—tools that promise to forecast demand, optimize prices, streamline labor, and surface insights you didn’t know to look for. But here’s the catch: these tools are only as good as the data they consume.

If your data is fragmented, unclean, or inconsistently labeled, AI becomes little more than a buzzword. Its recommendations will be inconsistent at best—and actively misleading at worst.

Before you can use AI, your business must be ready for it. And readiness doesn’t start with hiring a data scientist or choosing a model. It starts with your infrastructure.

Data infrastructure is no longer a luxury—it’s a prerequisite. If you’re serious about leveraging next-generation technology, investing in the foundation is no longer optional. It’s the only way forward.

What “AI-Ready” Data Really Means

Building a solid foundation for AI means more than just centralizing your data. It’s about ensuring your infrastructure is trustworthy, resilient, and scalable. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

  • Pipelines with Observability – Detect anomalies, schema drift, or missing files before they derail dashboards or corrupt models.
  • Master Data Management Across Products, Stores, and Customers
    Align labels like “Coke 12oz,” “12oz Cola,” and “Coca-Cola” so your AI sees a single product, not three.
  • Reference Data Consistency – Standardize how systems define voids, discounts, fuel types, and more to ensure apples-to-apples analysis.
  • Metadata for Context and Accountability – Track lineage, freshness, and ownership so data—and the AI built on it—can be trusted and audited.
  • Cataloging for Discovery and Scale – Make curated, governed datasets discoverable for business users and AI systems alike, without reinventing the wheel every time.

Build vs. Buy: The Critical Choice

If you’re ready to invest, you face one fundamental decision:  Do you build your own infrastructure—or buy one that’s already built for your business?

Option 1: Build It Yourself

  • Hire and retain experienced data engineers
  • Build and maintain your own pipelines, governance protocols, monitoring, and data catalogs
  • Invest years in internal R&D to achieve scalability and reliability

Option 2: Buy a Proven Platform Purpose-Built for C-Stores

Taiga’s Front Office Platform is a SaaS solution engineered for the complexity of convenience retail. It delivers a battle-tested foundation for AI and advanced analytics, without the multi-year buildout.  With Taiga, you get:

  • World-class engineering talent with deep c-store integration and legacy system expertise
  • Pre-built connectors across major operational and transactional systems
  • Embedded observability, governance, and metadata management baked into the platform
  • Minimal IT overhead and rapid time to value, enabling your team to focus on insights, not infrastructure
  • Real-Time Advanced Analytics – Mobile friendly, role-specific dashboards that deliver the insights your team needs, anytime, anywhere
  • A dedicated Client Success team that drives user education, adoption, and ongoing support
Contact Us

Seeing Clearly in a Dynamic Convenience Market

05/06/2025 | Comment

Change is nothing new in the convenience store industry, but the pace and stakes have shifted. With inflation, rising input costs, and ongoing tariff uncertainty, retailers face an urgent need for clarity, not guesswork.

In early 2025, U.S. consumer sentiment weakened substantially. Major brands like Clorox, Procter & Gamble, and PepsiCo have all revised earnings guidance as shoppers pull back on discretionary spending. Circana data confirms it: U.S. convenience-store sales dropped 4.3% by volume year-over-year. Snacks, refrigerated items, and even staples like Doritos and Twinkies are losing ground. Many customers still stop for gas, but skip the trip inside and the snack aisle. Apparently, lottery tickets are the exception.

Manufacturers Are Adjusting, But Retailers Need Precision

The real question is: What’s working in your store, with your customers, right now?

Three Real-Time Use Cases Retailers Can Act On with Taiga’s Front Office Platform

  1. Traffic Shifts by Time of Day: Breakfast traffic is down 12.6%, according to Restaurant Management Solutions. It may be the easiest meal to skip or eat at home for cost-conscious consumers. At the same time, stricter return-to-office policies could revive commuter flows. With real-time traffic data, retailers can adjust staffing and morning offerings to align with current behavior and optimize performance of their stores.
  2. New SKU Testing: Real-time insights help retailers experiment without overcommitting. From PepsiCo’s loaded Doritos to Hershey’s Gold Standard planograms and Smucker’s cherry-flavored Twinkies, brands are testing new formats. But what works in a focus group or a national rollout might flop locally. Real-time data allows operators to adjust quickly if items flop or fly off the shelves. 
  3. Product Margin Monitoring: With suppliers requesting updated price books daily, visibility into real-time margins is essential. Taiga customers use margin tracking to protect profitability, respond to cost changes, and negotiate from a position of strength using their own data before price shifts erode their bottom line.

From Reactive to Proactive with Taiga

Retailers today manage complexity across locations, systems, and categories. Taiga’s Front Office Platform turns complex data into a powerful tool for optimizing business operations and outcomes. Operators test pricing, adjust layouts, and fix underperformance in the moment, not weeks later.

The Clearer the View, the Faster You Can Move

The market is moving fast. With real-time insights from Taiga’s Front Ofice Platform, you can move faster, and smarter.

Contact Us

Are GLP-1 Drugs Affecting Your Snack Aisle?

04/09/2025 | Comment

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal reported something we haven’t seen in years: snack sales are down. Major brands like PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay and Campbell’s are seeing declines in categories that used to deliver steady growth. It’s not just a blip—it’s a signal.

At the same time, PepsiCo has been quietly investing in brands like Siete, which focuses on grain-free and better-for-you snacks, and more recently Poppi, a prebiotic soda positioned as a healthier alternative to traditional soft drinks.

These moves suggest a clear reality: consumer preferences are shifting, and the biggest players are trying to stay ahead of the curve.

What’s behind the change?

The article points to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which suppress appetite and reduce impulsive eating. But the truth is likely more nuanced—and more important to understand.
The shift in behavior is likely being driven by multiple overlapping forces:

  • Lower-income consumers cutting back on discretionary purchases due to inflation and economic pressure.
  • Higher-income shoppers making gradual changes to their eating habits in pursuit of health and wellness.
  • GLP-1 users, whose reduced hunger is quietly altering purchasing patterns.

These forces may look similar in your top-line numbers—lower snack sales, fewer foodservice add-ons—but their underlying causes are very different. And if you’re not measuring at a granular level, you won’t know what’s really driving the shift—or how to respond.


So the key question becomes: Do you have the data to detect which of these trends are affecting your business?


And if PepsiCo is betting on emerging health-forward brands like Poppi, the follow-up is: Will these products work in your stores—with your customers?


Most organizations aren’t equipped to answer these questions. Without connected data across POS systems, loyalty programs, transaction history, and customer segments, it’s nearly impossible to isolate patterns or test assumptions.

You might see that sales are down—but:

  • Is the dip broad-based, or focused in specific stores or regions?
  • Is it impacting your core customers, or those who shop less frequently?
  • Is it a matter of fewer trips, smaller baskets, or shifting category preferences?

In other words: Are you seeing signals—or just noise?


This is where data readiness becomes a strategic advantage. You need systems that allow you to segment customers, detect behavioral changes in real time, and test how new products like Poppi perform in specific cohorts. What works for a wellness-focused loyalty member in Austin may not land with a price-sensitive commuter in Toledo.

The Bottom Line

Your customers are already telling you what’s changing—just not with their words. They’re doing it through their behavior, and it’s embedded in your data.
If you want to navigate this moment, it’s not enough to watch the headlines.

You need the tools to read your own story.

So ask yourself:

  • Are you ready to test how health-forward brands will perform in your environment?
  • Can you detect whether behavior is changing because of price sensitivity, wellness trends, or medication use?
  • Are your teams equipped to act quickly on what your data is already telling you?

The snack aisle may be changing. Are you ready to change with it?

Contact Us

AI in Convenience Stores: Why Data Quality is the Real Key

03/25/2025 | Comment

AI is everywhere these days. Everyone’s talking about it:

  • “AI will optimize prices.”
  • “AI can automate workflows.”
  • “AI will solve all of our problems.”

There’s no doubt that AI and business intelligence (BI) tools have the potential to transform the convenience store industry. The promise of automated insights, smarter pricing, and better decision-making is exciting. But here’s the reality: the AI tools and dashboards getting all the attention are just the tip of the iceberg.

What really drives meaningful insights and reliable performance lies beneath the surface — and it’s all about the data. The quality of the data determines whether AI tools deliver valuable insights or just noise. Without clean, organized, and integrated data, even the smartest AI models will fail to deliver real business value.

AI is Only as Good as the Data Behind It

AI and BI tools are NOT magic solutions — they are only as good as the data infrastructure that supports them. Clean, organized, and accessible data is the foundation for reliable insights and business success.

Why Taiga is Different

What sets Taiga apart from other BI and AI companies is the robust system we’ve built beneath the surface. Our platform seamlessly aggregates data from across your business — including POS, back office, loyalty, and more — ensuring that AI and BI tools have access to clean, accurate, and consistent data.

What the User Sees – The Tip of the Iceberg

At the top of the iceberg is What the User Sees — dashboards, self-service queries, alerts, and AI-powered applications that deliver business insights and support decision-making. This is where the business value becomes visible to the user — but these tools are only as good as the data and infrastructure behind them. If the data feeding these tools is incomplete, inconsistent, or outdated, the insights they produce will be unreliable — leading to poor decisions and missed opportunities.

Data Model and Storage – Organizing and Ensuring Accuracy

Directly beneath the user interface is the Data Model and Storage — the system that cleans, validates, and structures data to ensure accuracy and consistency.Clean data ensures that queries and reports reflect reality, not noise. Poor data quality leads to flawed outputs, unreliable predictions, and misinformed decisions. Proper data organization and storage make it possible for AI and BI tools to query the data effectively and deliver meaningful insights.

Integration & Aggregation – Connecting Data Across the Business

At the foundation of the iceberg is Integration & Aggregation — the hidden engine that pulls data from systems across the business (like POS, back office, and loyalty programs) in a timely and scalable way.Without strong integration, AI and BI tools can’t access the data they need to generate meaningful insights. This layer ensures that data flows seamlessly between systems and that the information driving decisions is both current and consistent.

Core Business Systems – The Source of It All

And it all starts with Core Business Systems — the systems that generate data in the first place (POS, Back Office, Loyalty, etc). If data isn’t flowing correctly from these systems or isn’t integrated properly, even the best AI models will fail to deliver value.

Interested in learning how we can solve your data challenges and set you up to leverage AI both now and in the future? Reach out — we’d love to show you how Taiga can help.

Contact Us

C-Store Coffee Strategies: Beyond the Trend and Into ROI

02/26/2025 | Comment

I recently read a C Store Dive article highlighting innovative strategies that leading c-stores are using to boost their coffee sales—and it got me thinking: do these coffee innovations truly boost sales, or are they just passing trends? One of our customers recently told us that one of Taiga’s greatest strengths is its ability to facilitate side-by-side and historical comparisons for data-driven decision-making. With that in mind, here’s how Taiga’s Front Office Platform empowers c-store operators to efficiently test, apply, and fine-tune different strategies to optimize business performance:

1. Bean-to-Cup Machines

Many c-stores are exploring bean-to-cup machines to serve freshly brewed coffee around the clock. With Taiga’s real-time data, you can:

  • Test Market Performance Before Broad Investment:
    Pilot the machines in select locations to determine if the customer experience genuinely boosts overall sales, lifts higher-margin product sales, and drives repeat visits—helping you decide whether the innovation delivers long-term ROI or is merely a trendy experiment.
  • Minimize Downtime:
    Monitor sales patterns to predict when bean refills are needed, triggering automated alerts so staff can promptly address any issues.

2. Revamped Roasts

C-stores are reinventing their coffee offerings by updating their roasts to stand out in a competitive market. Taiga’s platform lets you:

  • Optimize Your Product Mix:
    Trial new roasts and compare their performance against historical data to gauge real customer acceptance. Track seasonal flavors—such as pumpkin spice or Irish cream—to see if they not only boost coffee sales but also lift the performance of complementary products.
  • Strengthen Supplier Negotiations:
    Leverage store-level insights rather than relying on regional or national averages, ensuring your product mix truly reflects customer demand and is not just a function of the product your supplier is pushing.

3. Customizable Flavors & Add-Ons

Offering a variety of creamers, syrups, and flavorings lets customers craft their perfect cup. However, it’s critical to know if these options are adding value or just cluttering the menu. With Taiga, you can:

  • Run A/B Tests:
    Introduce new flavor options in a subset of c-stores and closely monitor changes in sales and basket size. This approach helps determine if these add-ons drive a positive ROI or simply introduce unnecessary complexity to your operations.
    (It’s interesting to note that even industry giants like Starbucks are now streamlining their menus after years of extensive customization.)

4. Optimized Pricing & Promotions

Innovative pricing strategies and loyalty rewards can be a game changer for attracting budget-conscious c-store customers. By integrating your loyalty system with Taiga’s Front Office Platform, you can:

  • Measure Promotion Efficacy:
    Track redemption rates and overall sales lifts from various promotions—be it $1.49 cups or free coffee offers—to truly understand their impact.
  • Assess Long-Term ROI:
    Monitor repeat purchase behavior among loyalty program members to evaluate whether these promotions deliver sustained benefits rather than a short-term boost.

The Bottom Line

In the end, real-world testing is the only way to determine what strategies truly resonate in your market. Do bean-to-cup machines deliver consistent performance improvements, or might longer wait times drive customers away? Are revamped roasts and customizable options aligning with local tastes, or are they simply trendy add-ons? With Taiga’s real-time insights, c-store operators can pinpoint which innovations drive true value in their stores and refine strategies for maximum impact—ensuring every investment is backed by solid data rather than fleeting trends.

Contact Us

Five Years Into the Taiga Journey: Reflections and Key Learnings

01/13/2025 | Comment

The New Year is always a time for reflection, and this year, I found myself pausing to think about how far we’ve come—five years into the Taiga journey.

When I first started making cold calls to prospective customers, I’d mention that I was selling data analytics software. Back then, most people couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. Fast forward to today, and the transformation in this industry has been incredible.

Over the past year, attending conferences has been a stark reminder of how much has changed. Data has evolved from being an afterthought to becoming a strategic focus. Analytics is now a baseline expectation, and AI no longer feels like something out of science fiction—it’s here, knocking on our doors and demanding attention.

Reflecting on what I’ve learned through collaboration with our customers and partners, I’ve identified three key takeaways:

Data Analytics Relies on Connecting Across Your Technology Ecosystem

Many organizations are leveraging some form of data analytics, but fragmented data remains a significant hurdle. Without solving this fragmentation, it’s impossible to gain a holistic view of the business.

For example, one emerging trend is the use of electronic shelf labels to adjust prices and maximize margins. This pricing data is rich with insights but remains siloed without integration with other systems like loyalty programs, POS, and back-office platforms. The real value of analytics comes from connecting these data sources to uncover actionable insights.

Building In-House is Easier Said Than Done

One of the most common competitors we face isn’t another software provider—it’s the build-versus-buy decision. Many companies attempt to develop their own data solutions, but they often underestimate the complexity and long-term costs.

Over time, maintaining an in-house system becomes increasingly challenging. Markets evolve, technology advances, talent becomes harder to find, and costs increase. Meanwhile, SaaS solutions like Taiga have matured to deliver significant value in a much shorter timeframe without the escalating challenge of keeping in-house projects viable.

The Foundation of a Data Analytics Strategy Requires an Aggregation Platform

The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” has never been more relevant. High-quality, clean data isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the cornerstone for meaningful analytics and the gateway to leveraging AI and machine learning effectively.

An aggregation platform is the glue that binds disparate systems together, enabling real-time data connectivity. It cleans, catalogs, and analyzes data before presenting it in a user-friendly interface. Without this platform to create a single source of truth, businesses struggle to make sense of the overwhelming volume of data they generate.

A Journey of Transformation and Opportunity

The past five years have been nothing short of transformative—for the industry and for Taiga. We’ve seen businesses shift from questioning the value of data to embracing it as a strategic asset. But as data strategies mature, so do the challenges. Fragmentation, poor data quality, and the complexities of building in-house systems are obstacles we continue to solve alongside our customers.

Looking ahead, I’m excited for what’s next: helping businesses move beyond siloed analytics to fully integrated, AI-enabled solutions that drive real results. At Taiga, we remain committed to making data work for our customers, so they can focus on what they do best: running and growing their businesses.

Here’s to the next five years of innovation, collaboration, and success!

Use Your Year End Budget to Solve Your Data Challenge

12/10/2024 | Comment

Does This Sound Familiar?

Recently, I’ve been having the same conversation repeatedly with many of Taiga’s prospective customers: rapid expansion—especially through acquisitions—leads to data fragmentation. Each newly acquired group of stores comes with its own systems—different POS platforms, back-office software, and more. At the same time, demands for consolidated reporting across the entire chain are growing.  Unfortunately, the technical complexity required to achieve that goal is frequently underestimated.

Some organizations have attempted custom-built solutions, only to discover how challenging integrations can be—and how scarce the expertise needed to execute them is. Others have proposals for custom builds sitting on their desks, while some are just beginning to explore how to address the issue. Regardless of where they are in the process, the roadblocks are consistent: fragmented data and the overwhelming effort required to aggregate and reconcile it make achieving a unified view of the business feel nearly impossible.

 Taiga Simplifies the Complexity

Taiga’s platform is purpose-built for the convenience industry to tackle the data challenge head-on. Our off-the-shelf integrations connect directly to your store systems and aggregate, cleanse, and normalize the data in the cloud to enable seamless, real-time analysis and deliver actionable insights.

We understand that acquisitions often leave organizations with a mix of systems—four different back-office systems here, a handful of POS systems there, new car wash, diesel fuel—all operating within a single chain. While this complexity might seem like it would dramatically expand the scope of a solution, it doesn’t for Taiga.

Our platform is designed to handle these scenarios effortlessly because our integrations are part of our out-of-the-box solution. Whether your stores operate on multiple POS or back-office platforms, Taiga seamlessly connects to them, consolidating and normalizing your data without the need for costly, custom-built integrations.

Skip the Build, Choose a Proven Solution

While building a custom solution might seem like an option, the reality often introduces additional challenges:

Infrastructure and Monitoring: Ensuring all systems communicate properly requires robust infrastructure and constant oversight.

  • Data Quality: As the saying goes, “garbage in equals garbage out.” Without reliable data, reporting accuracy is compromised. Resolving discrepancies like mismatched UPCs and department inconsistencies requires significant effort to clean and normalize the data.  Taiga’s platform handles this process automatically.
  • Resource Demands: Developing and maintaining such a system requires substantial time, investment, and dedicated team members.
  • Time to Value: Building an in-house integration platform can take months—or even years—to complete, delaying the insights and operational improvements your organization needs now.

For these reasons, a growing number of organizations are recognizing that “buying” a proven solution is better than “building” one from scratch. Taiga eliminates these complexities. We provide off-the-shelf integrations supported by robust infrastructure and an experienced team to ensure your data is available 24×7.  We aggregate the data in the cloud, resolve data issues and catalog it according to the NACS standard to deliver reliable, consolidated reporting—without the headaches of managing it yourself.

Make Your Year-End Budget Work for You

By acting now, you can use your year-end budget to implement Taiga’s platform and achieve unified, accurate reporting in Q1 of next year.

Don’t wait! Contact us today to see how Taiga can transform your data into actionable insights and support your organization’s growth.

How PDI and Taiga Are Innovating with Data for Transformational Results

09/17/2024 | Comment

Tune into this Fall 2024 webinar hosted by Taiga CEO Bill Ivers, Prince Oil CFO Ben Peebles, and PDI Technologies Director of Enterprise Retail Product Management Andy McAdams, as they explore how Taiga and PDI Technologies are revolutionizing data analysis for convenience retailers.

Learn how real-time reporting and seamless system integration can unlock actionable insights and propel your business forward.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Real-time data, real-time results: Automate report generation and gain instant access to key insights.
  • Daily reports anytime, anywhere: Stay informed with reports across all your devices.
  • Accelerated product development: Our roadmap includes powerful new features to optimize your business results.

Taiga Data Selected by PDI Technologies as a Premier Front Office Reporting Platform

08/14/2024 | Comment

**CINCINNATI, OHIO, August 14, 2024** Taiga Data, a leading Front Office Reporting Platform in the convenience retail industry, and PDI Technologies, a global leader in the convenience retail and petroleum wholesale ecosystem, are excited to announce a strategic collaboration positioning Taiga Data as a preferred solution. This collaboration is designed to benefit both new and existing PDI customers.

Taiga’s Front Office Reporting Platform integrates in real time with PDI Enterprise ERP solutions that are used to operate convenience stores. Using this technology, PDI customers can leverage consolidated, real-time, mobile-first reporting to drive revenue, improve margins, and enhance customer experiences.

“We are thrilled to formalize our collaboration with PDI after successfully working together with several shared customers,” said Bill Ivers, CEO of Taiga Data. “Our combined efforts have greatly improved product integration and collaboration, resulting in numerous industry-leading innovations for our users now and in the future.”

“The Taiga team has built a robust platform designed specifically to automate and deliver the reporting needs of convenience retailers, so it’s no surprise that we already share a number of customers who have integrated our technologies,” said Drew Mize, Executive Vice President and General Manager, North America Enterprise Productivity, at PDI Technologies. “We look forward to expanding our reach to help more customers improve operational efficiencies, drive revenue, and boost profits with Taiga’s powerful reporting platform.”

Taiga is a proud sponsor of PDI Connections Live 2024, in Washington, DC, from August 25 to 28, 2024. Register for the Connections Live in-person networking and education experience here. In September, Taiga and PDI will co-host a live webinar that is free to attend; watch for registration details to come. To learn more about how your business can benefit from this collaboration, contact Morgan Pemble at Taiga Data (Morgan.Pemble@taigadata.com).

About Taiga Data

Taiga Data provides the Convenience Retail industry’s leading Front Office Platform, designed to unlock the power of retailers’ data and drive business results. Taiga’s Front Office Platform enables real-time data aggregation, customizable dashboards, and AI-driven analysis, allowing retailers to optimize their operations, enhance category management, and improve customer experiences. By automating manual processes and integrating seamlessly with existing systems, Taiga empowers businesses to leverage actionable insights, ensuring efficiency and growth in a highly competitive market. Visit the Taiga Data website for more information.

About PDI Technologies

With 40 years of industry leadership, PDI Technologies, Inc. resides at the intersection of productivity and sales growth, delivering powerful solutions that serve as the backbone of the convenience retail and petroleum wholesale ecosystem. By “Connecting Convenience” across the globe, we empower businesses to increase productivity, make informed decisions, and engage faster with their customers. From large-scale ERP and logistics operations to loyalty programs and cybersecurity, we’re simplifying the industry supply chain for whatever comes next. Today, we serve over 200,000 locations worldwide with solutions like the Fuel Rewards® program and GasBuddy®, two popular brands representing more than 30 million users. Visit the PDI Technologies website.

Media Contact

Morgan Pemble

Taiga Data

morgan.pemble@taigadata.com

www.taigadata.com

 
Hear from our Clients
"Taiga's Front Office Platform is the perfect complement to PDI Enterprise. I am truly excited about their growing collaboration and the new products they have under development."
Chris Heinz Coffee Cup Fuel Stops