The Background
Company
In 1969, the first KinderCare Learning Center opened in Montgomery, Alabama. Over 50 years, the company has grown and expanded. In 2021, KinderCare Learning Companies (KLC) started as the parent company for KinderCare Learning Centers, Champions, and Crème de la Crème School.
Today, their family of brands serve families around the country by providing safe, accredited and nurturing early childhood education and care programs, after-school programs, workforce childcare and summer camps at 2,000+ facilities in 40 continental US states and the District of Columbia.
Challenge
In 2019, KLC worked with a patchwork of solutions to execute market planning work. There was no cohesive solution that integrated with their existing systems and applications, and no consistent way to store and visualize data.
To get to the next stage of brand growth, they needed a web-based platform that could do it all.
Discovery
In their search for a unified market planning solution, KLC looked to their internal teams for ideas. Together, they came up with a short list of potential partners – including Sitewise. Our pricing, user-friendly tech, capacity to add predictive modeling and curiosity about their market planning needs are what set us apart from their other options.
“The depth of questions Sitewise asked us was surprising. They wanted to know what we do, but more importantly, they wanted they why behind the what.”
The solution
Rollout
They started with 39 users on the platform, all with different learning curves. Luckily, that wasn’t an issue – the team at KLC had ready access to our Client Services team and video training resources.
Data
When it came to data, KLC found everything they needed with Sitewise. Any data partnership they wanted? Seamless first-party data integration? The ability to visualize market planning decisions and their impact? Check, check and check.
Learn more about what makes data integration different at Sitewise Analytics.
Platform
KLC’s superusers love working with features like batch reporting, and the smooth workflows between Alteryx and Sitewise make their lives easier.
Their biggest success with the platform is the ability to present internal and external data to visualize market planning decisions and their impact. As a result, they’ve had a wider rollout to other departments and a big bump in users.
Learn more about what makes the Sitewise Platform a great fit for brands like KLC.
Support
Our dedicated Client Solutions Managers and in-app chat support made ideas like, “it would be really neat if I could do X” possible.
KLC users knew they’d get an answer like, “Yes, you can totally do that, and here’s how”, or “No one has ever asked that before – let me talk to the team.” For special projects outside of the regular scope of support, they know our leadership team has their back too.
“I know that if I copy Michael (President and CEO of Sitewise) on an email, he will call me shortly after to better understand what needs to be done to accomplish what I want.”
Learn more about the relentless support multi-unit brands experience with Sitewise Analytics.
Analytics
There are nuances in childcare that need a lot of thought and attention to detail when you’re building a sales forecast model. From model build to report customization and whitespace optimization, Sitewise has been there with KLC working to make site election proactive rather than reactive.
“The Predictive Analytics team works with us to get it right. Everyone is very accommodating, even when we ask for additional assets.”
Learn more about the Sitewise Analytics approach to Predictive Analytics.
The results
Success
As a for-profit company, KLC measure profit in returns per center and enrolments per center. More students mean more tuition which means more profits.
Sitewise helps KLC filter out the location strategy noise and spend more time analyzing forecast models. Now they spend less time overcoming decision-making hurdles and can quickly put together financial projections that deliver a higher overall success rate.
Users
Users adoption over time: 46%
In 2019, KLC started out with 39 users on their real estate team. Today they have 57 active Sitewise users, including people on their analytics team. That’s a 46% increase in adoption!
“Sitewise is quickly becoming an enterprise solution for KLC. We have almost 60 users today, and every day we get more requests for access from users across all departments from real estate to mergers and acquisitions, center pricing, compensation, and sales. I wouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t up to 100 users soon.”
Locations
Location growth over time: 78%
Future plans
2024 marks one year of the KLC team working with the Sitewise model – that means they’re due for a refresh. Combining gut instinct for their markets, a year working with their model and a year’s worth of their own data on the families they serve, KLC plans to use this refresh to redefine some trade area rules and test different algorithms.
A key consideration is the time it takes to open a center and ramp up enrollment. From site approval to center open can span multiple years. Their planned adjustments align with the element of uncertainty that comes with a long timeline.
In the coming year, they also plan to tackle a holistic approach of how they think about and plan programs for each of their brand markets around the country. That means creating distinct customer and demographic profiles for each brand, while optimizing all their markets. We can’t wait to take on this multi-faceted challenge with the KLC team!
