Member Article

Behind the business with Beyond Analysis

Beyond Analysis are global data and customer insight specialists. Group CEO and founder, Paul Alexander, takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

Having already achieved success in Europe, Africa and Australia, we took the natural next step for the business and expanded into the US last year. Although America is well-known for prioritising customer service, some studies suggest that traditional customer loyalty programmes are failing. In North America, just one in six (17 per cent) US consumers say their purchasing decisions are influenced by loyalty programmes. Our key challenge was to help our clients in the US to develop targeted loyalty programs by driving deeper customer engagement with the ultimate view to drive sales for the business.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

One of our biggest achievements would definitely be being awarded the coveted Service Provider Excellence in Application of Analytics award at the 2013 Banking & Payments Asia Trailblazer Awards. The award recognises our outstanding achievement in delivering significant incremental revenue to Robinsons department store by helping them to better understand their customers and add value to their co-branded OCBC credit card in a fiercely competitive consumer market.

I’m incredibly proud of this award because this winning project delivered on our core promise: putting customers at the heart of our clients’ business and using the resulting data-led insight to make better decisions. The result? Customer engagement and response rates dramatically improved: the 12 month pilot provided a return on investment of more than eight times the initial financial outlay.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

We recently announced that STW Group, Australasia’s leading marketing content and communications services group, has taken a minority stake in our Australian business. STW Group and its customers generate a vast volume of data; we’re looking forward to the prospect of working with STW group agencies and their clients to use this potential and drive greater customer understanding. A key focus for me for the coming year will therefore be to join forces with STW and its clients to unlock the value of their data.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

If you make one major investment in your business this year, invest in your data. Whether it’s defining your data strategy, or understanding what data you have at your fingertips, or taking your first foray into customer segmentation, nothing is a more powerful tool than your data. It doesn’t need to be over-engineered; the most simple and basic steps can help you lay the foundations to enable your company to make informed decisions that solve major business issues or identify opportunities for growth. Some companies try to grow sales without knowing the facts that data reveals, but that’s just plain guesswork. Some try to do it in ways that conflict with how we know human beings really behave; that’s just wishful thinking. The answer to all of your biggest questions lies within your data.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in your region or generally, and where your organisation sits within in it?

Everyone is talking about the potential of using ‘Big Data’ to solve business issues and deliver value, but Beyond Analysis is one of the few companies actually delivering on that promise. Our award-winning work with Robinsons department store and OCBC Bank, together with our ongoing relationship with Visa Europe – which also has a minority stake in our UK business – are just two examples of how we’re leapfrogging the Big Data debate and delivering on its promises. What does customer insight actually mean and how useful can it be to businesses?

Here at Beyond Analysis, our primary goal is creating positive outcomes. This doesn’t mean getting drowned in big data - far from it. We find one or two hidden gems in the data and ‘unlock their value.’ There’s no point analysing a piece of data if the cost vastly outweighs the benefits to the business. No one will thank us for something that is merely ‘interesting.’ The key is finding the ‘meaningful’ in that data. We have recently trademarked Customer DNA™ (C-DNA™) which allows businesses to translate a combination of relevant lifestyle, demographic and affluence measures, into meaningful customer patterns and segments. By having a holistic view of the customer, businesses can utilise the best data sources available to either solve the problem that’s keeping them awake at night, or quantify revenue opportunities – from delivering effective marketing communications to commercialising their data.

How does the process work – does a customer approach you with a brief or publication?

We engage with customers in whichever way fits their needs. Sometimes clients want us to take a quick dive into their data and prove a hypothesis using our fast track test & learn approach – for example, proving the need for a data-driven customer strategy through a series of targeted marketing communications, driven by customer segmentation analysis – which then leads to a longer term relationship on the back of the success of this initial exercise. Other times. Clients are looking for a more consultancy-driven approach, for example exploring the opportunities for data monetisation; or even need us to run their marketing campaigns for them and up-skill their in-house team. We can flex to meet any data need; get in touch and my team & I can help.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .