Business Intelligence Software

Targetbase Focuses On Analytics

As a leader in business intelligence and direct marketing, Targetbase incorporates technology, analytics and creativity to provide on-the-mark CRM solutions to such well-known brands as GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, American Honda Motor Company, Southwest Airlines and others. Using a unique, data-driven approach to execute targeted sales and marketing strategies, Targetbase often depends on SAS as part of its CRM solution.

"We look at data very, very differently," says Ed Forman, chief technology officer at Targetbase. "Instead of looking only at historical data on consumers, we create insight by drawing on behavioral data, factoring in consumer attitudinal characteristics, and deriving relevant predictive metrics that dictate appropriate action with the consumer. There's a lot of power in that, and we pull this off by using SAS as a component of our powerful analytical foundation."

Recently, for example, a nationwide grocery store chain that needed a customer segmentation solution quickly realized that Targetbase offered more than most of its competitors. Instead of simply determining how often a customer shops, Targetbase also helped the retailer distinguish those customers who are exhibiting signs of increasing loyalty from those whose loyalty is beginning to wane. And they developed unique marketing campaigns for each segment of customers.

"We still provide the standard measurements, like recency and frequency, but we also provide more advanced metrics, like velocity meters," explains Forman. "Our analytical group is incredibly creative about how they derive those fields, and SAS supports their creativity. The flexibility of SAS makes it possible to provide such advanced metrics."

Analytics director Mark Wood is responsible for gathering and analyzing relevant customer data from each client's operational environment. "We rely heavily on SAS to manipulate and structure the data," says Wood. "SAS is a foundational component for each new customer framework and helps us bridge the gap between collecting raw data to creating insights."

SAS empowers analysts and developers With a 25-year heritage in developing and utilizing customer knowledge, Targetbase is very familiar with the wide range of CRM technologies on the market. It relies on this experience to meet each client's unique requirements, and it knows that starting with an open architecture makes it easy to integrate the right combination of technologies for each new client

Targetbase also knows that regardless of where the customer data resides and regardless of how the results are presented, SAS is a technology that can contribute to every Targetbase solution. "From an analytical standpoint, SAS is always there," says Wood.

Whether accessing data from Oracle, or feeding analyses into Business Objects, SAS is an essential piece of the Targetbase solution set. It can be used for everything from data access and data warehousing to data analysis and predictive modeling. "There are few alternatives for the role that SAS plays," explains Forman. "SAS is a complementary foundational tool to other tools in our suite, and there are limited alternatives out there that can play that role and provide that flexibility."

In fact, Forman adds, "If we were to stop using SAS today, there'd be a tremendous drain on throughput and efficiency." Part of that efficiency comes from SAS procedures that can be used again and again on different projects, as well as other procedures that can be automated to speed development time.

"I've used SAS to automate everything from segmentation to media optimization, and that can save us anywhere from days to weeks for each particular process," says Wood. "That means we can spend more time focusing on the solution as opposed to working on the processes that underlie the solution. Essentially, SAS allows us to spend more time thinking about the data, instead of just preparing it."

After Wood segments and models the data, he passes the work to Marie Lee, director of the Business Intelligence Administration Group, where developers produce the final interface that clients will use to access customer knowledge. "SAS is very flexible for analysis and exploration," says Lee. "It provides the efficiency and broad functionality required to assist in fulfilling our clients' business intelligence requirements."

Published on www.softwarereviewblog.com

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