I recently wrote an article for Beyond Analysis on why actionable insights from data matter and how the obvious isn't always apparent.








My favourite quote from the article and something every retailer should ask themselves:

"Retail is detail, yet the obvious isn’t always apparent.  Can you answer these questions?  

• How many shops does it take for a new customer to become a lifetime customer? 
  
• What outreach are you doing to encourage that new customer to reach the magic number of lifetime loyalty? 
  
• Are your new customers simply topping up a ‘leaky bucket’ and plugging the hole left by customers who’ve deserted you, or are you truly growing?"
  

It's not difficult to sort this out and come up with a data driven strategy to drive business and profit performance.  Start with segmenting your customer base, so you know who/how/where and when your customers shop with you.  Once you know who your customers are, then you can focus on what matters - protecting your most valuable clients, intervening and saving those about to churn and avoiding those that were never profitable in the first place. 

It's not every day you can say that the Chairman and CEO of Visa is your warm up guy, but this week I can!  Peter Ayliffe gave a brilliant overview at the Beyond Analysis breakfast seminar last week.  Diana Hunter the new CEO of Conviviality PLC was also on hand to share her thoughts - after only being in her role for eight months Diana has led the float of Conviviality (AKA Bargain Booze) on AIM and also acquired Victoria Wine.  

After that impressive warm up, the audience then got me, which hopefully wasn't too much of a let down.

Here are a few key messages from my presentation.

1. Analysis Paralysis is a 21st century disease when it comes to big data and retail.  I often find that the more data thrown at a problem, the less common sense is applied to resolve the issue.

2. Data does not, can not and never will supplant killer retail instinct.

3. The obvious isn't always apparent, and actionable insights from data can help with that.  

4.  The mere fact you can measure something, divide one number by another or report on something regularly does not make it useful. Bring everything back to the four quadrants of retail improvement.

5. Manage by measuring - you can not optimise what you do not measure.  Think big, start small.

6. It's not just about why customers DO buy, it's about why the DON'T buy too.

And finally...

7. Done is better than perfect - i.e. A Good Plan today is better than a Perfect Plan tomorrow!