Company Situation
In the early 1990s, a new hair salon chain was founded as a serious challenger to established brands like Supercuts and Great Clips, targeting the underserved male grooming market. The company differentiated itself by creating an atmosphere specifically designed to suit men and boys, offering a comfortable, masculine environment where customers could feel at ease getting their haircut. Their unique positioning helped the chain rapidly expand over the two decades.
Problem
In 2010, despite their widespread footprint and impressive growth, the chain faced inconsistent performance across its 650 locations, highlighting the need for more sophisticated site selection methods. While the company’s Ivy League-educated CEO recognized the value of data-driven decision-making, their existing GIS-based tools provided only basic insights into candidate locations’ viability. The internal team lacked comprehensive analytics capabilities to accurately predict location success potential and optimize their expansion strategy.
Solution
To address these challenges, the company partnered with Ambient Array’s chief data scientist, Jed Jones, to develop a sophisticated site selection model. Jones and his team built a custom analytical framework that incorporated historical performance data based on existing locations. This advanced model used machine learning technology to take into account multiple variables simultaneously, providing a more nuanced and accurate assessment of candidate sites’ potential value than their previous tools had allowed.
“Adopting Ambient Array's model-based site selection approach has simplified our process and allowed us to more systematically evaluate new market opportunities.”
CEONational Haircutting Chain
The implementation of this model-based approach led to remarkable growth and improved profitability for the chain. By 2018, the chain had successfully expanded to 1,800 locations, representing significant market penetration. Most importantly, new locations selected using Jed’s model demonstrated a 27% increase in average location profitability compared to sites chosen before the model’s implementation, validating the effectiveness of the new data-driven
approach.
Contact an Ambient Array sales representative today to find out how we can work similar magic for you.