Support Analytics Blog

There was a great article in DM Review in September titled Analytics for Everyone by Swayne Hill.  What I took from the article is the idea that end users need more information and less data, especially historical data.  Being a true analyst, I want to have all the data to look for patterns, trends, seasonality and stories.  However, it’s not data that the end users need.  They need results and enabling information.  IT skills shouldn’t be needed to make sense of data like it typically is today.  An excellent example of this was found in this article and shown below.

“This point became clear to me recently when I visited my new wireless carrier’s local retail outlet. I was about to take a trip abroad and needed to upgrade to a new handset that would work overseas as well as at home. As the salesperson handling the changeover entered the data for my new account, I noticed two small rows of dots at the bottom of the screen labeled “churn” and “revenue,” and I immediately realized that this was a perfect example of the value of analytics embedded into the middle of a business workflow”. (DM Review)

Instead of the retail salesperson having to look at all of the customer’s data to understand how valuable the customer is to the company on the spot, it is presented immediately.  Granted it probably should have been less visible to the customer, but that’s irrelevant.  It’s not that difficult to program logic to determine the lifetime value of a customer.  It’s a little bit more difficult to define how likely the customer is to stay with the company.  Regardless, this type of predictive analytics is exactly what businesses need today.

In an environment where costs have been cut, cut more and cut to shreds, there needs to be more emphasis put on future looking and predicting outcomes and value.  Knowing what a customer did yesterday, last month or last year will only tell you just that.  If that historic data is used with specific logic, then it becomes very valuable as in the example Swayne gave above.

Predictive analytics

Stayed tuned for more posts on predictive analytics including examples.

Almost a year ago now, I wrote a post on the topic of Harvey Balls and how they can be used as a qualitative analysis tool.  I have seen them used primarily in Consumer Reports and also in many marketing departments.  Shown below is an example of the five scale Harvey Ball font that can be used in analysis.

The problem with this font is that it is not included in the default Excel package.  In my original post, I included a link to a site that provided this font, which can be added to the default Excel fonts.  Adding a new font isn’t that hard, but it does take an effort.  The downside of this font is that it is a derivative of pie charts, which have shown to be ineffective in data visualization.

Chandoo at Pointy Haired Dilbert just wrote a post describing how to use Wingdings2 to accomplish the same type of visual.  Also, he included a formula to automate the process when you have a table of data that you want to visualize.

So a table like this can easily become…

this Spot Matrix chart:

Using the Wingdings2 font:

Check out Chandoo’s post to see the formula to automate this process.

I think there are some limitations to this type of data visualization because it can be hard to identify/quantify the variance between two coordinates in the table.  For example, can you tell the difference between Option 2 – Availability and Scalability or option 2 and option 4 Availability using the spot matrix chart above?  It’s very difficult.  I think the use of a table with conditional formatting can be a more effective tool for analysis.  A table wouldn’t pass the pretty chart test, but would be more effective.

Suggested Reading:

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition

When I think of mobile analytics the first thing that comes to mind is linking mobile phones of the C-Suite, key leaders and key decision makers to the business intelligence center for an organization.

The second thought that comes to mind is mobile analytics for blogging. How nice would it be to get a periodic snapshot of Google Analytics or RSS stats sent directly to me (push vs. pull)? Maybe we’re there already, but I’m not seeing it.

I am a huge fan of technology and do many things beyond making phone calls with my mobile phone: update web pages, approve comments, add blog posts, twitter, email, SMS, etc. Why not have the functionality to view key analytics or dashboards with the same technology. Maybe there is more usage then I’ve seen, but the development/adoption seems to be extremely low. With mobile analytics, no longer would we be limited to either a laptop or desktop to have the power to make fact-based decisions. Also, with a global phone, you could view dashboards or metrics from virtually anywhere you can make a phone call.

Would you like to send and receive key analytics via your mobile phone?

This post was inspired by an article in the DM Review publication found here.