Intelligence is the New Black | Mobileum

Have you ever tried searching on Google for Business Intelligence, Market Intelligence, Data Intelligence, Customer Intelligence, etc.? You will get millions of pages of results, a sea of different solutions, products, and providers. Are we really in the Age of Intelligence?

The high penetration levels (above 100% in some markets), insufficient impact of low-price strategies, and increase in customer sophistication is forcing business to change the way of thinking and become “Intelligence” driven.

Business teams made a 180 degree turn, and instead of targeting only market share (new customers), they began to increase their focus on revenue share (same customers, more revenues). They didn’t stop looking at the prospect market and having a growth strategy, but Fidelization/Retention finally got some attention.

Companies have begun to invest in managing (creating, exploring, retaining, etc.) customer value, and for that they have the help of business and technological consulting providers of Intelligence solutions/products. The variety of products/solutions to manage customer value is highly extensive and can include some of the following areas:

• Behavior Segmentation
• Present and Future Value
• Credit Scoring
• Churn Prediction
• Default Prediction
• Fidelization Programs
• Next Best Offer (NBO)
• Social Network Analysis
• Campaign Management

The benefit of any of the above solutions is unquestionable. They generate great insight into customer needs, preferences, potential, risk, influence, etc., and this is essential to customer value strategy. The problem lies not with the conceptual value of the products/solution, but with the company’s ability to transform all of this insight in actual value. That is a totally different question.

The creativity of Business Analysts, Data Analysts, and now Data Scientists is unlimited, sometimes reminiscent of the Twilight Zone. This makes it very difficult for companies to keep up with the implementation of their new ideas, since creation (ideas) and implementation (action) are tasks that run in completely different gears.

The journey of changing from “the way things always were” and embracing this new “Intelligence” is long and hard, and therefore companies should strive to start out on the right foot. The first step is to answer some key questions:

• What is your main objective?
• How will success be measure?
• What are the milestones?
• What impacts are expected and what importance do they have?
• Are the initial requirements guaranteed (hardware, software, customer information, human resources, etc.), or is shopping necessary?
• Which processes will be impacted?
• Which teams will be impacted?
• How will Change Management be addressed?
• How much will be invest?

These are difficult, but essential, questions to answer. Without a destination, every journey leads to disaster!

With this in mind, Analytical Business Solutions should offer both an end-to-end solution and a staged implementation.

An end-to-end solution (from Data Quality Audit to Campaign Impact Evaluation) ensures that no detail is forgotten or underestimated, that consistency is guaranteed, and that the Data to Information to Knowledge flow is optimized.

A staged implementation integrates the company’s roadmap with the implementation plan definition, linking milestones and the company’s prior objectives, focusing on each stage, and moving from more standard, out-of-the-box solutions to state-of-the-art intelligence.

“Intelligence” might be the new Black, but pay attention. Don’t just follow a trend, make an intelligent choice.