Blog - Data analysis news and comment

Welcome to Information Drivers Blog. This is where we will provide data related news and comment. Please check back regularly or alternatively subscribe to our newsletter (on the right of this page) to ensure you are always up to date.

Blog written by David Willis

Being agile in an economic downturn                           26 Sep 2008

Now is the time to take advantage of the current economic situation. Financial institutions and airlines have been hit and there's probably more to come. Undoubtedly other sectors will feel the effects of the credit crunch too.

Agile businesses spot the opportunities and identify the threats quicker than others. It's no surprise that these organisations are well informed. They know what is happening in their business and can manage the associated risks.

Questions to ask:

• How well informed are we as an organisation?
• Are our competitors better informed?
• Where do we make most profit, which customers and products?
• Have we already experienced changes?
• Could we use what we know to be a more agile business?

It's already happening, businesses are seizing opportunities to out manoeuvre their competitors. The best informed are probably going to be the winners.

Data is a fantastic resource. It provides insight into your whole business: customers, products and services, sales, costs and profitability. Make sure you are exploiting your information resources and ensure you have an agile business.

Have you got everything in place to be well informed? Could you do with some help or guidance? If that's a yes, do get in touch (contact details top right of this page), advice maybe all you need!

Information silos - how many do you have?               15 Sep 2008

Some organisations struggle to understand what is happening in their business. Typically their information is stored in different information silos:

• Sales knows who achieved the greatest sales
• Marketing can identify which campaigns generated the best response
• Support understands when the peak times are for service requests
• Finance knows how much profit was made

No surprise then, successful organisations have a joined up view of business. They invest in combining their information sources, building comprehensive business insight. Decisions are made with great understanding of business impact:

• How short term sales tactics impact profitability
• That marketing campaigns increase demands on customer service
• Why low service levels impact future sales

Imagine the impact of combining the power of your data. How many information silos does your organisation have? What would you be able to achieve? Interested in finding out? Just contact us for a non obligation discussion (email top right of this page) and or subscribe to our newsletter and receive our free guide to generating revenue from your corporate data.

Market research - asking better questions                    8 Sep 2008

We're often asked to complete a questionnaire; to elicit opinions or feedback. What's strange is the information we're asked is often known by the vendor. Further, why are inappropriate questions asked? e.g.:

• Which products have you purchased?
• When did you last shop with us?
• How long have you been a customer?

Sometimes the reason given is to comply with Market Research Society standards. Other times, it's due to information not being maintained or collated. Neither are adequate justification.

If 5 out of 20 questions were things you already knew, you've wasted 25%! That's cost you money and your audience their time. Imagine being able to ask 5 more questions? What would you ask? How valuable would that information be?

When conducting market research, start by understanding your customers:

• Who are they?
• What do they buy from you?
• How often do they purchase your products or services?

Undertake customer analysis as part of your research project. As a result you will be able to ask more discerning questions. Just remember those extra 5 questions and their value to your business!

What's involved? How would you conduct the analysis? View the market research project for The Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply

Profiting from your data                                                28 Aug 2008

Yes that's right you can profit from your investment in data. No doubt you have a number of systems that capture customer information.  Probably the most important is your CRM system. A well maintained CRM database provides huge potential for generating repeat business:

• When did they last make a purchase? Isn't it time they placed another order?
• What did they buy? Do you have other products they would be interested in?
• Are they happy with the product or service? Yes? Then sell them more!

You know far more about your customers than you do strangers. You can use your CRM data identify latent business opportunities. It's more profitable to sell to existing customers.

Most CRM systems are supplied with a reporting function. You will need a report that provides a summary of customer purchases. Perhaps something like this:

The report will contain a summary row for each customer. This makes it relatively simple to see the opportunities. Depending on how many customers you have, this maybe a big list. If you have a big list, then you may need to summarise the results. Use the data to build a cross-tabulation / pivot table.

The results will help you target existing customers with relevant offers.

Assessing data quality                                                    18 Aug 2008

Reliable information requires quality data. Most organisations have adopted CRM to improve customer service and reduce costs. As a result, far more customer data is recorded than ever before. CRM data must be high quality to ensure the information it delivers is reliable.

It's best practice to regularly assess the quality of your CRM data:

• How robust is the data? What business rules were applied at data entry?
• Focusing on customer related data - what is the meaning of the tables and fields?
• Are fields consistently populated and where not, which have missing values?
• Are values standardised and or are there free text entries?

When undertaking reporting or analysis, it is essential to understand your data. Do you run business reports from your CRM?

Our guide to generating revenue from your corporate data has a section on data quality. It provides an inexpensive way to assess your data. You can receive this free guide by subscribing to our newsletter (top right of this page)

Business data enrichment                                              11 Aug 2008

Data enrichment can help you gain greater understanding of your customers. Appending additional information provides differentiation between apparently similar groups of customers:

• Industry classifications - Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities (SIC), Yellow Pages, Thompson's, etc
• Company status, number of years trading
• Turnover, year-on-year growth
• Number of employees, total, by branch office and job function

Analysing corporate data with this additional information can provide new levels of insight. But, as with any analysis, it is essential to understand the data being used:

• An organisation may be assigned multiple SIC codes. Which one should be used? Which most accurately reflects what the organisation actually does?

Just like marketing, analysis needs to be tested, revised and tested again. The source and reliability of information is crucial. When enriching your data, make sure you know when it was updated.

If you outsource your data enrichment, check the level of match achieved. Good bureaux will provide an estimated match level in percentage terms. If the match level isn't reached go back and ask why?

Enriched data can also be used to derive new variables:

• Spend vs. industry sector average - are customers above or below the average?
• Spend per employee - do smaller or larger companies provide greater potential?
• Number contacts vs. potential recipients - could targeting be increased?

When building customer segmentation, consider what additional data would differentiate your customers?

Cross-selling products and services                                4 Aug 2008

Why does a customer buy one thing but not another? I find it fascinating and enjoy searching out their purchasing patterns. Have you wondered why a customer purchases one product but not another? Why would a company buy a product but not a service?

Chances are the information is available within your sales system. You just need an alternative view that provides the comparison.

You could do this using a pivot table in a spreadsheet. If you have large volumes of data, you might consider a business intelligence solution. Business intelligence is just like a Rubik's cube, remember them? They allow you to review your figures and then re-orientate the puzzle.

This analysis compared the number of customers taking products against services: Yellow shading = cross-sell potential i.e. only products or services purchased Red shading = up-sell opportunities i.e. spend in one area is disproportionate to the other

In this example, behind each cell is the list of associated customers. It's just a matter of choosing a cell and contacting those customers.

Next time you're reviewing sales, perhaps ask yourself what could we be cross selling?

Effective content delivers increased sales                     28 Jul 2008

Effective content design delivers new enquiries and increased sales. No surprise there, but just how effective can it be? In conjunction with sales data, you can measure the success of your content design:

• How is product positioning influencing customer purchasing?
• What combination of products are being ordered?
• Could subtle changes increase profitability?

Measuring the effectiveness of content design isn't just for websites. With extracts from catalogue management systems, catalogue performance can be assessed too:

• Which product purchase combinations were on the same catalogue page?
• Which pages deliver the highest cross sell return?

If you run a catalogue and or have an on-line store, don't limit your analysis. Analysing content with sales data helps you understand customer buying patterns. With this knowledge you'll be able to increase content effectiveness.

FAQ for data terminology                                                 23 Jul 2008

Just like all industries there are a myriad of data related terms and phrases. You will come across many in literature, articles and websites. The Information Drivers data FAQ is designed to help you understand what they mean:

• What is a data warehouse?
• What is customer segmentation?
• What is data mining?

The FAQ explains data terminology and provides the answers to these questions and many more.

New website for sales and marketing                            14 Jul 2008

Today Information Drivers launched its new website for data-driven sales and marketing. The aim is to provide content that helps you use data to reveal customer insight and improve business performance. If you are a client or a visitor to these pages, we would appreciate your feedback.

Thank you to the people who helped make this happen. Particular thanks too:

• Nigel Temple at The Marketing Compass

"Having joined The Marketing Compass, we are reaping the rewards of step-by-step professional advice and feedback on marketing activities. Brilliant - thank you Nigel”  

• Jasper Williams at Juice Factory

"We wouldn't have achieved our logo objectives without the assistance of Juice Factory - thank you Jasper"