Case Study: Discount Drug Mart

Discount Drug Mart is a privately owned regional retailer with more than 75 stores across Northeast Ohio. Founded in 1969, the business operates as both a full-service pharmacy and a neighborhood department store, carrying more than 40,000 items across health, grocery and general merchandise categories.

That breadth creates opportunity and complexity. Every store, category and planogram decision directly affects margin, inventory and customer experience.

The challenge:

Limited access slows decisions

Like many growing retailers, Discount Drug Mart collected enormous volumes of transaction data. Every SKU, every store, every day. But access to that information was limited.

Store managers, buyers and category leaders relied on IT to run reports. Simple questions often took days to answer, making it difficult to:

Compare performance across stores
Evaluate planogram effectiveness
Identify out-of-stocks and placement issues
Negotiate confidently with vendors

To compete with national chains, Discount Drug Mart needed broad access to answer questions quickly.

The decision:

Position decision power closer to the business

Discount Drug Mart partnered with Salient to give teams direct access to transaction-level performance information, without routing every question through IT.

The goal to enable real-time decision-making for the people responsible for margin, space and inventory.

“It used to be ‘put the request in writing and we’ll run the report tomorrow,’” said Michael Filbert, Director of Information Services. “Now it’s immediate.”

How it changed:
Less waiting. More action.

With direct access to performance data, teams could finally manage the business as it operates in reality.

Category managers could:

Track product movement by store, category and time period
Identify top movers and underperformers
Spot sudden drops that signal planogram or execution issues

“If one store suddenly has zero movement for a product, we can investigate what changed in placement and correct it,” Filbert explained.

For finance and leadership, visibility extended beyond sales into margin and profitability.

“We can evaluate out-of-stocks and see what’s making us money and what’s not,” said CFO Tom McConnell. “It’s a good way to analytically compare stores with different planograms.”

Stronger vendor conversations

The shift also changed how Discount Drug Mart engaged with suppliers.

With immediate access to historical and store-level performance, leadership could support negotiations with facts instead of estimates.

“One of our largest vendors asked for a year of sales data,” said P.J. Ferut, Vice President of Information Services. “They expected it to take a while. I sent it in about two minutes.”

That level of preparedness leveled the playing field.

Manufacturers were often surprised to see the same depth of insight they expect from national chains.

The outcome:

Scale intelligence without scale bureaucracy

For Discount Drug Mart, performance improvement didn’t mean acting bigger. It meant acting smarter.

By putting information directly into the hands of decision-makers, the organization gained:

Faster responses to store-level issues
Better planogram and space decisions
Stronger negotiating leverage with vendors
More consistent margin management across stores

“It puts more information in the hands of more people,” said accountant Tim Kostich. “And we can act on it right away.”

Discount Drug Mart proves regional retailers don’t need massive infrastructure to compete with national chains. They need understanding, speed and confidence in their decisions.

When insight is immediate and shared, performance follows.