Who are my best customers, and how effective are my marketing campaigns?
Being able to quickly identify your best customers, grouped by their demographics and buying patterns is critical to effective marketing strategy. This Solution enables Sales and Marketing teams to quickly identify their best (and worst) customers and can also analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Data Analysis
Who are your customers, where are they, and what are they buying?
Customers are grouped geographically and linked to the products that they’ve purchased. Customers can be evaluated and graded based on the products or product groups they’ve purchased, geography, and other demographics. Users can drill down to the underlying sales order details as needed.
What revenue is being generated, and how does that vary by geography, season, and sales channel?
Individual product SKUs are rolled up into one or more levels (for example product family and product group) to allow sales and marketing to determine trends and view summary metrics at the group as well as the SKU level. At the SKU level, users can display just product name, just product SKU, or both name and SKU.
Which are my best and worst customers and products?
“Top” and “Bottom” views are supplied that can quickly summarize the best and worst performing customers (pr customer groups) and/or products (or product groups) for any of the metrics listed below.
When was the revenue generated?
In addition to the information described above, users will also be able to decide what time period(s) to review, which will show when specific metrics were achieved (or missed), and how those numbers are changing. The time dimension is available at the top of the Analysis UI, or can be displayed in one of the view quadrants. Generally the most relevant settings will be period (view data for a single period) period over period (to quickly compare performance relative to a prior time) or rolling 12 period analysis, where a period can be a month, quarter, or year (or any other available period). In addition, data from different time periods can be displayed in adjacent columns to compare recent history with comparable periods in the past. Also, custom time dimensions can be added to allow analysis of sales for specific holidays or holiday periods, weekends vs. weekdays, etc.
Revenue Evaluation Metrics
This will allow users to select a metric of interest out of the available measures to be displayed with the dimensions listed above. Users will be able to change the metric of interest to drive different types of investigation. Users can investigate how the values of the following measures vary with the dimensions described above:
- Revenue
- Volume (units sold)
- Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
- Margin (based on COGS)
- Margin % (based on COGS)
- Average Selling Price (ASP)
Time dimension handling
The standard solution includes adjustments for fiscal vs. calendar time, period-over-period, user-definable rolling period, and last 12 period analyses. Standard periods are years, half years, quarters, months, weeks, and days.
Additional information:
The standard Marketing cube summarizes closed sales orders only. In addition, an Open Orders cube can be created to allow sales, marketing, and operations teams to track open order trends. If possible, marketing campaign information (type, cost, duration, etc.) will be added to the Solution during the Solution delivery. However, not all systems or implementations support the information needed to provide campaign analysis or the information listed below. Typically, standard cost and therefore margin should be available, but detailed costs can be difficult obtain accurately and so may not fit into a phase 1 project. Other potentially useful information:
- Product delivery method and cost.
- Company or division associated with the sale.
- Business unit and/or sales channel (direct, distributor, web, etc.)
- Cost center associated with the sale.
- Discount
- Commission
Data Presentation
Performance vs. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Bullet graphs or conditional cell color changes can be configured to highlight performance that either fails to meet or exceeds corporate targets. These goals can be set and modified easily in the Analysis front end so that the business users can set the appropriate goals and also adjust them as needed as performance improves.
Graph Types
iQ4bis Analysis supports the following graph types:
Trend Chart
Bar Chart
Stacked Bar Chart
Column Chart
Stacked Column Chart
Pie Chart
Pareto Chart
Built-in calculation logic
iQ4bis Analysis has the following pre-defined calculation logic available, and also supports user-definable custom expressions if required.
Variance
Variance %
Achievement %
% of Total
Sum, Sum of Column Range
Quotient
Product
Revenue Analysis-Specific Views provided
The standard Revenue Analysis solution includes the following views as starting points for customization.
Basic Marketing Analysis
Marketing Analysis with Trend Chart
Marketing Analysis with KPIs
Month and Year to Date Variance
12 Months Analysis
Top and Bottom 25 Customers
Top and Bottom 25 Products
Standard iQ4bis Analysis Templates
In addition to the specific views listed above, the Solution also includes:
One Grid
Two Grids (horizontal)
Two Grids (vertical)
Three Grids (two bottom)
Three Grids (two left)
Three Grids (two right)
Three Grids (two top)
Four Grids
Achievement Bullet Graphs
Charts
Measures Across
Period and Year to Date
Rolling Periods
