About Sysco

‍Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing, and distributing food and non-food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments, and other customers around the world.

The Challenge: Staying on Top of Trends in a Changing Market

With a global reach across multiple industries, Sysco conducts detailed market analysis to strategically evaluate growth avenues. Even before COVID-19, this was no small task. The data on operators in the foodservice industry is fragmented and not frequently updated, which posed a challenge for this type of analysis.  Sourcing this data was particularly difficult for smaller brands, and keeping up with the constantly changing restaurant industry proved to be a tall order. Once the team had a solid supply of location data, they had to turn around and source it all again to maintain its freshness.

When the global pandemic drastically altered the economy, especially the industries Sysco is focused on, having reliable data for market analysis became even more crucial to the business’ success. Restaurateurs across the country faced disparate local regulations on restrictions, causing many to temporarily or permanently shutter.  Sysco’s market, customer, and competitive intelligence team was seeking more accurate, up-to-date data that could help them navigate these changes quickly and effectively.

The Solution: SafeGraph Places Data

Sysco began using SafeGraph data in its market analysis for lead generation as part of its recent digital transformation before COVID-19 hit. SafeGraph’s POI data empowered Sysco to better understand customers’ and operators’ same-store activity through deeper customer and market intelligence. The Sysco team developed a multi-pronged approach to its market analysis that uses SafeGraph data to locate businesses and identify relationships, like brand affiliation. This approach enabled Sysco to quickly respond to the changing COVID-19 economy. 

With SafeGraph Places data, Sysco has reliable and up-to-date information about their customers and operators, helping them identify on a weekly basis where to focus their efforts. The brand hierarchy information included in SafeGraph Places data has been particularly useful to Sysco, as they can aggregate market data at the brand-level to identify which brands are experiencing spikes or declines in demand.

SafeGraph Places data has proven invaluable to Sysco in navigating the many operating changes implemented by restaurants in response to COVID-19. Sysco also uses SafeGraph data to analyze how lockdowns will affect their customers and operators in different geographies and industries.

SafeGraph data empowers Sysco to uncover complex market insights in a changing economy and evolve its business strategy with reliable analytics. With the detailed information provided by SafeGraph Places data, Sysco’s market, customer, and competitive intelligence team is able to deliver detailed reports to the leadership team and identify areas of opportunity.