Why is Digital Marketing Analytics so HOT in Analytics.

Dear Friends,

This is one of the interesting area, i thought to share with you all. Companies across US,Europe and  India had started to invest 100 million dollars/year in this area, as they see more oppurtunity in this space.

Digital Marketing Analytics consists of typical new media like Online -(Direct, Keyword,email,Rich,Non rich,and other channels in the online space), Social media,Social networks(Complex subject-Facebook is investing a lot, in this research area),Mobile,Apple -IPad,etc;

The reason being all these channels are seeing an average of 200-400% of customer usage growth in US market, as projected by Comscore,and more people are using these medium, in some or the other way contributing for revenue to  retailers,Banks,Consumer product,insurers and other services.

Then what is Digital Mareketing -Analytics?, Identifying the purchasing chain pattern of the customers in these medium,especially identifying the advertising communication flow from the sellers to customers, and feedback communication flow from the sellers to buyers , and identifying these  customer insights(buying behaviour) through data, make this subject more intersting and more complex and good for Consulatnts like us.

Was it the same before in Traditional media like TV and Print,May be the next question from the readers.? The answer is yes, but  the Financial team in big companies used to count it as marketing expenses, as there were no proper way to measure the data(Mostly Panel data was captured), eventhough good predictive models(Market Mix/Bayesian/Market Research Models) existed at that period.

But advancement of Dataware housing Platforms and Technology, the system is able to capture terabytes of every data, makes this area more accountable in the balance sheet.

From a Analytics and insights point of view,now the science as become a much an art.Even for solving a business problem lot of hypothesis and experiments have to be tried with advanced models and validated with business users for their insights and also to stand ahead of competition,as even smaller brands will give a tough fight to the bigger brands.

Let me give a example, a Funeral and Cemetry company in US, is seeing a decrease in conversions. So they analyzed the data for some insights.They tried analyzing reasons like, is it due to navigation pattern,Visitor Patteren,Traffic Pattern, Campaign Pattern, Content Mismatch,Competition Positioning,Service Bundling not good,Customer Experience not at great to customers, so you can add more to the list.

In terms of data and variables,all will have 5 to 6 granular data or Variables, for each of the Patterns(like Campaign etc) and Complex modelling technique like Bayes model or other models will be tried out- The reason being data interralation ship is also complex in this space(which in next article i will discuss the same).

Is modelling alone sufficient -No, once you have answers from different experimental models, now you need to validate with the primary research(Focus groups),Campaign managers responses, etc; Matching these they finally figured out the campaign was Trageting Rich Boomers and not ethnic hispanics, who saw the funeral as more emotional.

Once figured out the answer to business problem,the team tried to change the communication style(Neutralize the communication messaging to all different ethnic groups) and finally they could see a increase in conversions(revenue)  in the funeral comapny (This is a 2.2 Billion dollar comapany in US).

iDENTIFYING THIS INSIGHT AND SOLVING THE BUSINESS CASE MAKES DIGITAL MARKETING ANALYTICS -More Complex and INTERESTING.

Wait for Next Insights.

From
Ravi
Insight Consulatnt.

(Known is a Drop,Unknown is a Ocean -There is much more to learn than we know)

Victorious India - Not only Cricket even Analytics

Victorious india win 2011 in cricket  this decade, will set all indians to prove their point in what ever the field they are in. India with lot of problems,  has always the potential to win, and this cricket team has shown it, Same will happen in all different technology and business fields.

In the area of analytics, to win some thing like that, what we need to groom is some fundamentals and sligthly fine tune our thoughts and work hard.What we lack is the connectors, innovative thoughts and calculated risks and relationship and synergy among the team, focussed hard work and patience to achieve the goal.

The point, i want to communicate a scenario in US market, they  spend more then few billion dollars inthe ecommerce field. all companies do that, then there is always going to be complex market, complex product and new customers with different taste and interest may be in banking, retail, telecom, etc. and the spend will double and may even increase further in coming years.

Ideally, there will be more data and newer process and newer tools and new business model to attract the so called facebook customers, for them world revolves in world wide web.com. The message is  if we got the things right the connectors, ability to visualize online business, online campaign, new customer segment and understanding the social network and relationship from time to time, and last but not least multi technology skill set we are sure to win

if we connect and  converge all this with data available vs data not available, you can see more process and more answers for all the complex business problem, ex a brand categorization  and profit making, cannot be that easy in online space with multibrands in their portfolio to growing their business in complex market.

New gen  indians who can think and sink thier ideas to converge  and play in the one globalised world, united by knowledge is set ready for the challenge of different brains from diff countries .If we can think to focus and work hard we are sure to win in the knowledge world to emerge, where best brains will compete  and will get redcarpet welcome from diff country, to be more prosperous and global leader. So, we indians are ready to lift the cup of numbers and new business to emerge, why not give a tough competition to google, face book,IBM from india atleast in packets or niche segments.

Cheers,
Ravikumar Krishnan -linkedin

SAS Google Vs IBM SAP Oracle Growth Business models

A different topic for dscussion this month,

People who ever working for these big companies or using the products (Especially Advanced Analytics and Business intelligence products) of  SAS,Google,IBM,SAP,Oracle and other Analytic Products might be aware or knowing that these companies often come out  with new products or new updates regualarly.

The question is, how is this innovation  happening, when other companies in the  market is unable to do this?

Let me give a small example on how this innovation happens, Assume that you are a small business man working with a team of 3 to 5 for any service or any product,and consider you are the incharge of  selling,Budgeting and the cash box. Assume for a week, the regular cash inflow is decreasing  or revenue is decreasing.what can you infer out of it?

A few answers could be

1. Customers are not interested,  or demand is less for the product or service

2.Competition might be growing

3.You are not having enough inventory to do your business

4. Enough person to do work is not available, so you can add on reasons like this,

Now coming to our initial question on innovation of these BIG Companies? As these comapnies are sitting closer to the cash box or revenue box  to any business or business model.

Here the" CASH BOX LIES IN THE ANALYICS DATA OR BUSINESS DATA", (sales data, revenue data, competitor data, promotional data and CRM data  and you can add more data to this list).

As these companies, while giving solution to the consumers or customers, are also really close to their business model(Inclsive of marketing,finance and operations), and as they work for more number of similar clients alike , they are able to consolidate the business problems which are of similar nature to these business categories.

Once able to group or consolidate the business problem, for similar segment of the consumers or customers, and  with  the help of the strong R&D team and marketing team, they are able to come out with newer process,products and updates.  In addition  with their  better marketing effort they are able to sell these advanced products from the lessons learnt from the client's business model to newer set of clients, and these chain or cycle continues and these companies grow tremendously.

Coming to the growing companies,with smaller client base especially in this analytics segment, can also come out with newer innovative products, and even with a smaller RandD team and also keeping  lower price as the differentiator strategy, can even outpace these BIG companies with in the smaller product portfolio.

So , now every body can say that  innovation or new business model in Analytics space is "CASH BOX lIES IN THE ANALYICS DATA OR BUSINESS DATA"

Cheers

Ravi

Ravikumar krishnan - Linkedin

Analytics consultant vs. Management consultant- In a SME (Small and Medium enterprise)/bigger organization

Many in the industry are aware of the profile, Management consultant, But very few are aware of the profile “Analytics consultant” or (BAO Consultant defined by IBM), which is the topic of discussion today.

A typical organization has different set of teams and profiles, in Marketing, Finance, Operations, Human resources, Systems and Technology, etc; each team has their own processes and functions enabling the smooth running of the organization, and more a life line for many organizations future growth.

Moving the organization to the next level, every company needs the help of the domain consultant or an expert, so called Management consultant who engages himself with the domain which he is working in, come’s out with innovative ideas on different process and performance, and also look’s the updated process till the successful implementation of the new process. Once after process implementation, he comes out with different performance metrics or process metrics or Key performance indicators, for different time periods, defining the future growth of the organizations in the market place.

Modern organizations, having killer ideas funded by venture capitalists or shareholders, wanting to show a tremendous growth with less manpower, and within a short span, should come out with a blue ocean strategy to outpace their competitors. Here, the scope of a management or IT consultant is limited to a certain extent, as each may not get the enough support in terms of collaborative planning, are different levels of hierarchy followed within the organization, and also may be less cooperation among the team members and decision makers.

To overcome these problems, bigger companies as well as modern companies are looking out for a typical role called as Analytical Consultant’s whose profile is not only to update or innovate the process, but should also aid the decision makers with unique and intelligent insights. To deliver these insights’, he should also be an expert in identifying the business problems in different functions or domains, and should be able to give solutions for the problems identified, with the data and the process.

Apart from that, he should also be able to set up an Business intelligence system(a complex system composed of many sub-systems that must be aligned with each other and work well together to produce the desired business results), like which data to be captured into the database or systems, and the other tools and technologies(such as ETL-Extraction, Transportation and Loading,etc;), and also able to set up a proper team with efficient tool and technologies in place (Can use open source technologies for an small organization).Apart from that he should be able to give adequate training to the team of different skill sets and making them to think in unison.

Once the data set and the process is ready, with the help of the team and technology, he should be able to tune the process with intelligent dash boards (for different performance metrics or score cards), with in a web based system, which will enable the decision makers to know the exact performance of different verticals at each point of time. Apart from this, he should be able to take the data and process to the next level and interpret the same with robust statistical models or prediction models and come out with brilliant insights, to come out with the blue ocean strategy to outpace the competitors.

In writing, this role may look more a combination of Business intelligence consultant and Management consultant. But, in reality, finding this people with the appropriate skill set and experience is really tough, because it is a mix of critical pillars like Technology, Statistics, Domain, Performance, Strategy, Business insights and Team management.

The person should be able to allocate 50% of the time to the business related issues, like problem identification, data selection, strategy formulation and implementation and the remaining 25% of the time to technology and statistics discussion and implementation, and the remaining 25% of the team for training his team and supervising the entire data flow from data to decisions or data to strategy or in financial terms data to year on year growth.

Looking at some organizations, engagement of a management consultant is not that easy, like providing him the adequate data, resource, etc; and similarly for an IT consultant who is more focused towards technology and systems. So budding analytics professionals, either coming from a Statistics (Predictive Modeling using SAS/SPSS), Technology (Database Modeling, ETL, Strong Queries), Process Management (Advanced dash boards and Scorecards), Strong Domain Knowledge (Like creating the data into variables for Marketing/Risk/Supply chain/HR/Web, etc), Business back ground(Identifying the problem, finding the solution and implementing the solution) should hone their skill sets in the above mentioned multi domain, so that he can have a successful and satisfactory career.

In future, government in India, are in the process of approving separate platform for the SME’s to trade their shares, Once they get the nod from the government, we can see quite number of venture capitalists showing interest in these kind of organizations. On the other hand, the big organizations like IBM, SAP are also looking out for these kinds of profiles who can speak the language of Technology, Statistics and Business with the same frequency and wavelength, and iam sure that these peoples will be in high demand with a hefty package waiting for them. Because modern organizations to grow, with in a less span requires lot of Analytic consultants in huge numbers who can create the Blue or Red ocean strategy for the respective organizations.

Top Analytics companies in India

Top Analytics Companies in India (Using SAS/SPSS):In Analytics what we try is make clusters for the people to deccide on their own, These clusters ,on  analytic companies will help you a lot

Branded Analytics Cluster 1( These companies are struggling hard to mark their name in the market place,not a easy task to get the advanced analytic  work outsourced to india, but still their confidence and faith in indian next gen resources, who can think and innovate, make them to try hard  to make their brand powerful.It will take time, with Vision,Mission and team Synergy and focus, iam sure they will mark their name in the next decade, decade of knowledge -decade of indians)

1. Musigma,Bangalore
2. Inductis, Gurgaon
3. Fractal Analytics
4. Marketics or WPP, Bangalore
5. Manthan Systems,Bangalore
6. Absolutdata, Newdelhi
7. Denuosource, Hyderabad
8. CrossTab, Mumbai, Bangalore
9. Decision Craft, Ahmadabad
10. Modelytics, Bangalore
11. Latent view analytics, Chennai
12. Dexterity, Chennai
13. Pharmarc, Bangalore
Firms involved with Quantitative research Techniques
Irevena, Chennai
Amba Research, Bangalore


Cluster 2 -Large analytics providers(Pioneers in india for Banking and retail,CPG):With out these companies much of analytic process and good trained resources, wont have  spread across india.Thanks to these companies, which started as captive of GE and IRI, especially in Financial services Models and CPG/Retail models,Made people to visualize, how much westerners, especially american give importance to numbers and facts for their decision making and helped the new gen to grow thier analytical blend

1. Genpact and Symphony Marketing solutions Bangalore


Cluster 3 -IT companies with a strong analytics practice:(For all these companies, analytics started as extension of data ware housing or BI, still most companies in IT field think analytics to be Data mining, and for them Aanlytics pie is a smaller piece in their portfolio and its a long way to go for them to think what analytics is all about and finding right resources and also getting analytic leadership right will be a much challenge,as these comapnies always think to grow their internal leadership team into analytics with limited knowledge, need to wait and watch, for them its all money is honey not more than that, except 1 or 2 in the list below)
1. Infosys, Bangalore
3. Cognizant (Market Rx)- Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon
3. TCS, Chennai and Mumbai
4. HCL,Gurgaon, Chennai
5. Wipro, Kolkatta, Bangalore
6. Capgemini,Bangalore
7. Mahindra satyam

Cluster 4 - Mega TOP League MNC's Units (These are the companies especially IBM, which had invested 5 Billion dollars, size of infosys into Analytics, demand creators for atleast 2 to 3 decades to come.Thinking Analytics and merging with engineering applications like Sensors,Actuators and Robots, and will take time for the people, where they are going about. One thing i can say at this point to budding victorious indian generation is, the coming decade will be ours -If we can appreciate the concept of convergence from Analytics to Engg from Business problems to real life problems like water, energy,transport, agriculture,air,climate- which will be the business of next decade)

1.IBM,BAO,Bangalore
2. Accenture,Bangalore,Gurgaon
3.HP DSAS,Bangalore,Chennai


Cluster 5 MNC’s  Captive Units: (These are captive units looking for talent outside their home ground, and each are unique in thier process and leaders in their space. For youngsters joining their understand their process, replicate it to your future companies or new indian emerging companies will make you to stand out from the race of millions.)

ZS Associates, Pune
Netapps, Bangalore
Cisco, Bangalore
Google, Hyderabad
Chainalytics, Bangalore(Operation research)
 Amazon, Bangalore
 eBay -Chennai
 Citibank, Chennai(Card Analytics)
 Dell Analytics, Bangalore
 Fidelity, Bangalore
 HSBC Analytics, Bangalore
 JP MORGAN, Mumbai
 Amex, Gurgaon
 Standard Chartered Bank, Chennai
 UBS, Hyderabad (Acquired by Cognizant)
 Microsoft, Hyderabad
 Fair Isaac Bangalore
 Dun &Bradstreet, Chennai
Global Analytics Inc., Chennai
 Dunhummby, Gurgaon
 General mills, Mumbai
 Acnielsen, Mumbai
 Milwardbrown, Chennai (Maps)
 Novartis, Hyderabad
 Deloitee, Hyderabad
 HLL, Bangalore
 Mckinsey, Gurgaon
 Boston consulting, Mumbai
 Redpill solutions, Chennai (Acquired by IBM)
 Target, Bangalore
 Supervalu, Bangalore
 Tesco, Bangalore
 UST Global, Chennai
 Citianalytics, Bangalore, Mumbai (Acquired by TCS)
 Wattsonwyat,Bangalore,Mumbai,Gurgaon(Actuaries and HR)
 Hewitt Associates,Gurgaon
 KPMG,Gurgaon

Cluster 6 -Indian Banks/Insurance with Analytics operations (This places are learning ground for the new gen, because all the players will be from old school of thought except few,and thinks will change once they invest in good technology,good data, good resources and complex markets to emerge. One thing sure - if you can think outside of analytics to direct business and growth in these companies, you are set to grow)

 ICICI Bank/Insurane, Mumbai
 HDFC Bank/Insurance, Mumbai
 Standard Chartered Bank,Chennai
 Bazaj allianz Insurance,Chennai
 Bharti Axa insurance,Bangalore
 Reseve Bank of india,Mumbai

Cluster 7 -Mobile Service provider with Analytics Operations (interesting area to watch for - this is the market where already market has become complex. Innovators and Challengers - this space will be your cup of tea)

 Vodafone Telecommunications, Chennai, Mumbai
 Nokia Networks, Gurgaon
 Airtel, Gurgaon
 MTN Mobile,Gurgaon

Cluster 8 - Indian companies with Advanced web analytics
(Behavioural Targeting using SPSS/Unica Affinium/R)(Future belongs to these comapnies for next gen  analytics, but not matured enough for a strong analytics career in these companies, multi domain knowledge on technologies with analytics can make you an outstanding player and valuable resource in the market for the years to come)

Rediff.com
 Bharatmatrimony.com (Consim info pvt ltd.), Chennai
 Naukri.com (Info edge group), Chennai,Delhi
 Timesofindia (Online Newspaper), Mumbai
 Make my trip, Gurgaon


Cluster 9 -Indian Retail stores within house Analytics operations(Still not matured for analytic's career like US market, foreign retail coming into india, will make this area to move to top slot in term of analytic career)
 Shopperstop
 Reliance retail

Cluster 10 -Indain Manufactures withinhouse Analytics Operations( Need more time for this market to grow interms of analytic career)
Caterpillar,Chennai
Johndeere,Pune

Cluster 11 -Clinical Research (Bio -Statistics)(Already established field, but still a niche field since dealing with clinical data .Passion  and patience in this domain is necessary for youngsters)

1 Novartis,Hyderabad
2. Quintile,Bangalore
3. Reddylabs,Hyderabad
4 Accenture,Chennai
5 Cognizant,Chennai,Pune
6  genome

Cheers,
Ravi
Ravikumar Krishnan - LinkedIn
- The whole idea of updating the list is dedicated to the budding and growing analytics professionals.

India emerges strong as an Analytics Super power

India is becoming a strong power in the area of advanced analytics, or the area of predictive modelling. See the list of around 60 -70 Analytic companies in india, and the current list is being increased day by day.
Most of the companies listed below use SAS/SPSS
And the analytic market is concentrated primarily in Bangalore and Gurgaon
Followed by Mumbai( Mostly Financial analytics),Hyderabad,Chennai and Pune.
So, if you are person liking to settle in north then Gurgaon will be your choice, If down south, Bangalore can be your primary choice.

See the comapanies below.

Advanced Analytics and Business Analytics companies in india
(Using SAS/SPSS)
Branded Analytics providers :

1. Mu-Sigma, Bangalore,2. Fractal Analytics, Gurgaon3. Inductis, Gurgaon
4. Marketics or WPP, Bangalore
5. Meritus –Mindtree, Bangalore6. Absolutdata, Newdelhi
7. Denuosource, Hyderabad8. CrossTab, Mumbai, Bangalore
9. Decision Craft, Ahmadabad10. Modelytics, Bangalore
11. Latent view analytics, Chennai
12. Dexterity, Chennai
13. Pharmarc, Bangalore
14. Manthan systems, Bangalore
15. AOL online, Bangalore

Large analytics providers:
16. Genpact, Bangalore
17. Symphony Marketing solutions, Bangalore

IT companies with a strong analytics practice:
18. Infosys, Bangalore
19. HCL –Chennai and Bangalore
20. Cognizant (Market Rx)- Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon
21. TCS, Chennai and Mumbai
22. Wipro, Kolkatta, Bangalore

MNC’s Units:
23. ZS Associates, Pune
24. Netapps, Bangalore
25. Cisco, Bangalore
26. Google, Hyderabad
27. Chainalytics, Bangalore
28. Amazon, Bangalore
29. eBay -Chennai
30. Citibank, Chennai
31. Dell Analytics, Bangalore
32. Fidelity, Bangalore
33. HP Analytics, Bangalore
34. HSBC Analytics, Bangalore
35. JP MORGAN, Mumbai
36. Amex, Gurgaon
37.Standard Chartered Bank, Chennai
38. IBM, Bangalore
39. Accenture, Gurgaon, Bangalore
40. UBS, Hyderabad (Acquired by Cognizant)
40. Microsoft, Bangalore

Global Analytics and Consultancies firms having Indian Operations:
41.Fair Isaac India,Bangalore
42.Dun & Bradstreet, Chennai
43.Global Analytics Inc., Chennai
44. Dunhummby, Gurgaon
45. General mills, Mumbai
46. Acnielsen, Mumbai
47. Milwardbrown, Chennai
48. Novartis, Hyderabad
49. Deloitee, Hyderabad
50. HLL, Bangalore
51. Mckinsey, Gurgaon
52. Boston consulting, Mumbai

Indian Banks with Analytics operations
53. ICICI, Mumbai
54. HDFC, Mumbai

Mobile Service provider with Analytics Operations
55. Vodafone Telecommunications, Chennai, Mumbai
56. Nokia Networks, Gurgaon
57. Airtel, Gurgaon

Indian companies with Advanced web analytics (Behavioural Targeting using SPSS/Unica Affinium/R)
58. Rediff.com
59. Bharatmatrimony.com (Consim info pvt ltd.), Chennai
60.) Naukri.com (Info edge group), Chennai
61.) Timesofindia (Online Newspaper), Mumbai

Firms involved with Quantitative research Techniques
62.) Irevena, Chennai
63.) Amba Research, Bangalore

Indian Retail stores within house Analytics operations
64. Shopperstop
65. Reliance retail.

Hope the list continues.

Thanks,
Ravi