Information for Managing Directors

Our clients invest in systems to support their businesses; systems to process sales orders, deliver customer service and market products and services.

Together these systems provide a fantastic resource with details of customers, sales and pricing, etc. This information resource provides for understanding of customer purchasing behaviours and the ability to direct up-sell and cross-sale propositions to increase sales.

What all our clients have in common is their use of data to sell more. Their investment in translating data into information supports their business decisions and delivers actionable information to generates sales and improve profitability.

With data made readily accessible and in the right format, management receive the insightful reports and information they need to manage their business.

If any of the following resonate with you then please read on, if not, you may require some specific help or advice, please get in contact (details top right of this page).

Who are my top customers?

With what seems like such a simple question, you can get many different answers. This in part, is due to each area of the business having their own priorities and methods for measuring success:

• Sales focus on orders in the last sales cycle
• Marketing on recent activity and response rates
• Customer service make judgements based on calls for service

Each valid in its own right, but you want to know who the best customers are based on margin once all the costs to service them have been taken into account?

When you ask finance, you receive another answer and it doesn't quite match up with sales because they are using different dates, invoice rather than order date, and finance report using year-to-date figures against a financial calendar. So the figures are similar but not the same!

The solution to this dilemma is to invest in Business Intelligence -  it is a technology that brings together information from systems, consolidates the results and presents them in a clear and consistent format. Information Drivers has helped a variety of organisations implement Business Intelligence solutions.

There are quite a few technology vendors who sell Business Intelligence software, and a number have recently been acquired by the biggest suppliers: SAS, Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft (if your systems run on a Microsoft Platform, you may already have access to the technology).

As with any investment, it is essential to consider how Business Intelligence would work in your organisation:

• Who would use the information?
• What would they be using it for?
• Will it fit into my current systems investment?
• How much does it cost and how quickly will I receive a return?

Which marketing investment delivers the best return?

Perhaps you've been presented with a proposed marketing budget for the next financial year or you're part way through a marketing cycle and haven't seen the anticipated results.

Key to measurement is the collection of data, before, during and after the marketing activity. It is this data that will be used for measurement of performance:

• Who received  the communication?
• When and why they received it?
• Who responded or made a purchase?

If any of these elements are missing, then they can't be measured and as a result, it will be difficult to judge success.

All good campaign management solutions provide the means to track and measure performance. If your marketing system doesn't readily provide this information, then perhaps an alternative method of providing performance measurement is required?

A Business Intelligence solution may be appropriate or perhaps a new marketing system. Either way, a system like those implemented for our clients, that combines campaign information and with sales, will together build a clear and concise view of marketing effectiveness.

Marketing armed with an effective database system will be able to provide the information you need and ensure marketing investments are measured and deliver results.

Does my website convert visitors into customers?

There are many statistics that can be used to judge the success of a website; hits, page views, visitors, etc. but what really matters is did the website meet it's objective:

• On-line store, product purchases, cross-selling propositions
• Information portal for specific community, membership and or customer service
• Building brand awareness, advertising, etc

It is possible to assess:

• Brand awareness - how many unique visitors did you achieve after a campaign
• Click through rates and how much money is being generated
• How visitors arrive at your store, what they look at, what they come back too
• Which products and services are of greatest interest and which they buy
• Cross-sale opportunities, increasing average spend and profitability

IT departments typically have responsibility for ensuring websites are working, but it is marketing that manages website effectiveness. They may have access to various tools to help them e.g. Google Analytics, etc. but is the performance information in a form that management can judge the investments made in on-line marketing?

If like some of Information Drivers clients, you have an on-line business: an on-line store or membership based system, then it will be driven by an on-line database. Your website performance information when combined with data from the on-line database will provide a comprehensive view of what is happening in your on-line business.

CRM achieving its potential and delivering return on investment?

Most businesses have invested in Customer Relationship Management - used effectively CRM can support further sales in addition to delivering excellent customer service. It's no surprise that the best CRM initiatives are those where the organisation manages CRM performance.

CRM provides a fantastic opportunity for collection of customer information. From this information, the business knows:

• When customers make contact?
• Why they make contact?
• What did they previously ask about?
• Have they purchased a product or service?
• Which products or services are of interested to the customer?

CRM can help a business become more efficient, streamlining business processes and ensuring accurate collection of information. What is sometimes overlooked is its potential for creating a more effective operation. You've probably made an on-line purchase from Amazon or a similar on-line store, they analyse sales data to deliver targeted propositions at point of sale. CRM can do the same; whether on-line or through a call-centre, CRM can deliver cross-sale propositions and generate additional sales.

CRM collects the information needed to build these propositions, what is required is the analysis and interpretation of the results - our clients have benefited from this service.

Data quality issues affecting the ability to report information?

Some of our clients have had data quality issues, they now understand the need for good data and appreciate its value. It may be that system processes need changing, data capture rules implemented or perhaps data needs to be enhanced before to reporting. What ever the requirement may be, high quality data will help ensure that robust decisions are made.

It is essential for business to have a clear picture of its data and to understand  the reliability of its information. If data quality issues may be affecting the ability to generate accurate information, you could ask your IT team the following questions:

• How robust is the data? What business rules were applied at data entry?
• Focusing on the customer - do we know how and where data is stored in the system, which tables contain what information?
• Is information captured consistently and where not, what is missing?
• Are users forced to enter standardised information or are there fee text entries?

The results of data analysis are reliant upon the data which they are based. So whilst there is a strong need for data due diligence, lengthy data quality projects may result in significant delays and lost business opportunities.

Striking the correct balance between data quality and timely information delivery is essential. Most organisation have data quality issues, it is dealing with them in a pragmatic and effective manner that delivers timely and robust results.

Why is it so hard to get useful information?

An increasing number of systems are supplied with reporting capabilities, but this doesn't mean to say they can report across a whole business. Typically each system has it's own reporting capability. That's fine if you have a single system, but of little help if your operations are managed by a number of disparate systems.

To deliver reliable and concise information, there needs to be a single source information. More often than not, the myriad of systems found within a business have different ways of holding information. Because of this, there is a need to consolidate the information held in these disparate systems into a single consistent view; a Data Warehouse.

Most organisations have legacy systems, where applications were built or acquired some time ago, providing functionality that met the requirements of the day. These systems are seldom integrated and operate on a wide range of technologies.

A Data Warehouse is a copy of data from multiple systems; extracted and transformed, combining the results for storage in a consistent, cleansed database. This database is specifically structured for query and reporting, typically providing the infrastructure to support a Business Intelligence solution.

As such a Data Warehouse will:

• “Show me what is important”
• “Let me ask why”
• “Let me change my mind”
• “Let me see other data”
• “Let me see the top line, the bottom line, and where the money went”

Information Drivers has built Data Warehouses for organisations with hundreds of millions of sales transactions as well as others with tens of thousands. So what ever the size of your business we are sure to be able to help you get the information you need in the most cost effective way.

If you would like help delivering information; a whole solution or just some assistance building a report or analysis, please contact Information Drivers (details top right of this page).