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Predictive Analytics: Looking to the Future

Author: Bruce Jackson

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS: LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Business intelligence, trend analysis and reporting – each of these functions is an example of Descriptive Analytics. These functions take a retrospective look at where the business has been and how the strategies turned into action. Descriptive Analytics approach the business strategy by looking in the rearview mirror. Companies rely on business intelligence and Descriptive Analytics to answer common questions such as:

Companies dive into these questions by leveraging historical and current datasets, then use dashboards, reporting, alerts and queries to identify trends. When areas of strength or weakness are identified, companies drill-down into the datasets to better understand the factors behind the under-performance and/or over-performance. These types of historical performance or root cause analysis are essential to evaluating the effectiveness of various strategies and informing the strategy going forward.

Descriptive Analytics: Perspective in the Rearview Mirror

What happened last quarter?

What were our sales and revenues for that reporting period?

Where did we miss our targets?

What shortfalls caused us to fall short?

Descriptive Analytics are useful for assessing the effectiveness of your strategy and tactics. However, Descriptive Analytics offer a rear view mirror perspective – they show an organization where they have been – but they do not precisely analyze what will happen in the future.

Successful companies move forward. They look to the future. That’s why Predictive Analytics are essential to setting business strategy and leveraging data to look ahead and predict how those potential strategies will meet corporate goals. For example, Predictive Analytics can consider:

Moving Forward with Predictive Analytics

• WHAT ARE THE PROJECTED REVENUE TRENDS WITHIN A PARTICULAR TERRITORY ORGROUP OF TERRITORIES?

• WHAT IS THE QUOTA ATTAINMENT POTENTIAL, BROKEN OUT BY INDIVIDUAL SALESPROFESSIONAL OR TEAMS, FOR THE NEXT REPORTING PERIOD?

• WHAT IS MY PROJECTED COST OF SALES AS A PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE BASEDUPON THE PROJECTED PERFORMANCE OF MY SALES TEAM?

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS: LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Predictive Analytics can also have a significant organizational impact on sales compensation planning.

Sales compensation planning has traditionally relied upon a combination of historical business intelligence and Excel spreadsheets. These approaches are cumbersome and error-prone. Even small errors can create significant problems that will move you off target. Overpayments are costly. They are never reported and rarely recovered. Those resources are lost forever.

In 2012, WorldatWork and Mercer conducted a benchmark survey of over 560 North American organizations and asked what they would like to explore through analytics that they were unable to do today. More than half of respondents (57%) said they would most like to gain greater insights into the effectiveness of their overall rewards strategy and its specific elements.

There’s an old adage that the person who asks a question frames the answer. In many ways, that’s what an organization does when it employs Descriptive Analytics. The areas for analysis are based on the organization’s traditional assumptions about strategic priorities.

More importantly, the outcomes are entirely determined by the strategic framework within which those actions were implemented, and the results pertain only to those courses of action. As such, Descriptive Analysis tells you what has occurred, but it does little to consider the potential effectiveness of other strategies.

Predictive Analytics allows a company to step outside the traditional assumptions. Predictive Analytics offer an opportunity to consider a range of potential strategies, tactics and resource allocations. By giving organizations the ability to conduct “What If” Analysis, Predictive Analytics allows companies to consider these different factors and predict the potential outcomes of various decisions.

Leveraging Predictive Analysis for Effective Sales Compensation

Working Beyond the Traditional Assumptions

• WILL MY EXISTING CUSTOMERS LEAVE? IF SO, WHY? AND WHEN?

• WHICH OF MY EXISTING CUSTOMERS WILL TURN TO THE COMPETITION?

By answering strategic questions such as these, Predictive Analytics enables organizations to optimize their resources and take effective actions.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS: LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Predictive Analytics also yield significant benefits for key areas for business strategy. Leveraging Predictive Analytics, companies will find benefits it some areas that will lead to success.

Realizing the Full Benefits of Predictive Analytics

ENHANCED STRATEGIC PLANNING Predictive Analytics opens the decision-making discussions with more than just ideas; it offers data-supported figures to forecast the outcomes of potential courses of action.

Trend analysis is helpful to show where a company has been. But where do you go in the future? Predictive Analytics makes those discussions effective, and offers evidence-based answers to what was before just speculation.

PRICE OPTIMIZATION Drawing on customer behavior, past strategies and performance, Predictive Analytics can help companies pinpoint the price that will maximize the customer’s willingness to pay while maximizing revenues and profits.

BETTER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS It’s the core of all business activities – the customer relationships and meeting the customer’s business needs. Predictive Analytics can help in this regard. Looking ahead, Predictive Analytics can enhance these relationships by telling a company when a particular customer is likely to require more product, or a replacement, and provide them with what they need before they even ask for it. Those forward-looking perspectives go a long way to enhancing those relationships.

MORE TARGETED MARKETING CAMPAIGNS Marketing campaigns are an exercise in properly choosing targets and employing the best route to reaching them. Predictive Analytics are essential in determining whether your campaign will reach the targets. For example, companies that practicing Predictive Targeting – developing a target audience with a solid expectation of which customers are likely to become return customers and which will remain one-time clients – will find that Predictive Analytics are essential tools in this planning. Ultimately, these efforts lead to higher ROI, as it’s a well-known business principle that servicing a repeat customer is less costly than securing a new customer.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS: LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Leveraging Technology for Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics may offer business benefits, but the underlying datasets must be accurate, timely and automated. Furthermore, the technology solution must integrate both the strategic and tactical levels of the organization – bringing in data from the company’s overall goals, and connecting those strategic factors with the objectives and performance metrics of individual team members, sales representatives and executives.

Technology such as Sales Performance Management (SPM) and Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) solutions provide sophisticated software for creating these datasets. As automated solutions, these products evolve and change as the company grows, ensuring accuracy and relevance in its analysis at all times.

For more information, visit Iconixx at www.iconixx.com.

3420 Executive Center Drive, STE 250 Austin, TX 78731877-ICONIXX www.iconixx.com

Author: Bruce Jackson, President and Chief Operating Of�cer

Biography: Bruce Jackson, is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of Iconixx including end-to-end management of the company's software product suite, sales activities, services, and support. Mr. Jackson re-joins Iconixx having previously served as Managing Director with the company prior to its acquisition by nGenera where Jackson served as Vice President, Business Solutions advising companies on business strategy and technology enablement within core Sales Performance Management fundamentals including sales and marketing alignment, sales incentives and pay for performance, and sales channel effectiveness.Most recently, Mr. Jackson was Vice President, Business Development for Varicent Software where he was responsible for growth and operations of Varicent's global strategic partner network. He had previously served as Varicent's Vice President, Solution Consulting, advising and guiding the company on an operational level with a speci�c focus on providing implementation subject matter expertise.Mr. Jackson holds a bachelor degree in Computer Science from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.