Industry Science Veteran Joins KSS Retail as Chief Science Officer

Posted on 29. Nov, 2007 by in Blog, Press Release

[Press Release] KSS Retail, a global leader in price optimization solutions, announced today that Dr. Paul Helman has joined the company as Chief Science Officer. Dr. Helman has previously worked on optimization and data mining solutions for Procter and Gamble, and retail clients including: Food Lion, Walmart, Safeway, Meijer, Albertsons and HEB. Dr. Helman has an academic career of more than 25 years and is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico.

“KSS Retail is uniquely positioned in the market with a merchant-friendly solution that puts price modeling and optimization in the hands of the people who make pricing and promotional decisions,” said Dr. Helman, Chief Science Officer of KSS Retail. “I’ve seen many retailers with ‘analysis paralysis’ and I am excited to join a company that has figured out how to provide a merchant with the right information at the right time.”

“Dr. Helman has an extraordinary background in both optimization science and computer science”, said Lance Jacobs, CEO of KSS Retail. “Our ability to empower the merchant with predictive insight on pricing and promotions will be further enhanced with the addition of Dr. Helman to our Science Team.”

Dr. Helman’s research into solutions for the retail food industry includes the development of mathematical algorithms for:

  • Promotion optimization: Optimizing the mix of items in an offer list and optimizing the set of consumers to receive an offer list mailing.
  • Clustering: Clustering consumers by buying habits (e.g., cherry pickers, high-valued consumers), baskets by types (e.g., tonight’s dinner, monthly stock-up), and stores by similarity.
  • Basket behavior: Discovering statistical patterns of item affinities and of items that drive high-value baskets; identifying the sequences of purchases as consumers walk the aisles in a store.
  • Consumer reactions to out-of-stocks: Analyzing what a consumer does when confronted with a stock out, i.e. substitute, delay, or no-purchase.

Dr Helman’s academic work has also included extensive research into the theory of optimization and bio-computing, and he has worked extensively over the past 5 years on the development of real-time out of stock alerts for retailers.

About KSS

KSS Retail, formerly known as Knowledge Support Systems or KSS, is the leading provider of in-house price optimization solutions for the grocery, convenience, chain drug and general retail industries. Retail merchants use KSS grocery pricing software to model and optimize in-store prices for regular and promotional pricing by using an intuitive, fast, merchant friendly tool that integrates price modeling and optimization into the daily work-flow of a merchant. For more information, visit www.kssretail.com, or contact: Lyle Walker at (972) 733-0465, or at Lyle.Walker@KSSRetail.com.

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