CIO Bulletin

Providing Technology-Enabled Analytics Solutions in Marketing and Sales Effectiveness: Analytic Edge

Digitization has transformed the business landscape to a great extent. It’s a consumer-centric world, and customers have the last word. Optimum resource utilization and workload automation have become crucial necessities for every enterprise today. With the rapid growth of integrated business technologies, entrepreneurs are finding it easy matching up to ever-changing consumer preferences. From their account details to information on flight schedules, consumers are increasingly relying on automated technologies. Quite naturally, businesses are embracing Cloud Automation solutions thus aligning business processes with consumer expectations. Cloud automation platforms and solutions streamline your IT operations. By liberating unused resources and ensuring optimum utilization of the crucial ones, automation systems cut down unnecessary processes. These systems also notify the need for human intervention. As a consequence, business processes and IT operations become easier than ever! These are some of the exceptional benefits offered by cloud automation solutions and service management. Irrespective of your business size, Cloud can offer the perfect support.

ANALYTIC EDGE is one such company that provides technology-enabled analytics solutions and integrates technology, industry knowledge, and cutting-edge statistical techniques to deliver fast, cost-efficient and actionable business insights. The company leverages robust cloud-based automated technology platform for marketing analytics which means shorter project timelines and speed to insight for its clients. Its platform can be customized to adopt client-preferred methodologies and best practices and they also have flexible engagement models.

Factors That Make Analytic Edge Most Trusted Company

Deep Expertise – Management team has extensive experience in marketing analytics with deep technical & business expertise.

Speed to Insight – The company leverages a cloud-based automated technology platform for marketing analytics which means shorter project timelines and speed to insight for its clients.

Cost-efficiency – The productivity gains from its technology platform enables them to deliver marketing insights cost-efficiently which allows its clients to scale coverage of analytics.

No black boxes – They provide clients with full access to its cloud-based platform where statistical models and data transformation assumptions are open for inspection, discussion and debate.

Flexibility – Its platform can be customized to adopt client-preferred methodologies and best practices. They also have flexible engagement models – project-based, resource-based, and subscription-based.

Global Footprint – Analytic Edge has a presence in all Regions through its own offices and channel partners which enables it to provide client service support in most markets.

Ability to Scale Rapidly – They can scale rapidly since they leverage technology and have access to a large talent pool of analytics resources.

Best-in-Class Cloud-Based Automation Solutions Offered

Demand Drivers™: One of the most important challenges marketers face is determining the Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) so that marketing spending can be allocated optimally to drive maximum sales, revenues and growth. Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is a technique that is widely used by companies across industries to measure ROMI and optimize marketing spends. However, there are several limitations in the way MMM is typically done today. Most MMM solutions are extremely time and resource intensive. Integrating and ingesting data from numerous sources, determining the right attribution models and then generating insights takes months. As a result, the insights generated are often based on data that is 8 to 12 months old. They may help in diagnosing what worked and what didn’t in the past, but are not very useful for guiding future marketing planning decisions. A second limitation is that businesses are completely dependent on specialists for every step of the process, making it difficult to generate insights quickly and on-demand.

Demand Drivers is an ‘always-on’ cloud-based marketing mix platform that integrates the entire process and automates key steps to complete ROMI analyses faster, helping companies generate real-time, actionable and “forward-looking” insights to make quick marketing spend decisions. Demand Drivers™ has six integrated modules covering all phases of the marketing mix analysis process. Integrated data ingestion and review tools help teams set up new analyses and publish updated results faster. An integrated modeling module allows teams to create or modify marketing mix models on the fly, with extensive control over the methodology. The planning, simulation and reporting modules make the results accessible to marketers, answering their ROMI questions. Integration eliminates hand-offs, improves quality, and speeds decision making. Demand Drivers is a ROI measurement solution that allows companies to overcome these limitations. It is a cloud-based, AI-driven automated platform that allows brands to run predictive marketing analytics in-house, with the cost, scale and speed advantages they need.

Integrated Business Forecasting and Planning: Accurate sales forecasting is an indispensable business tool. It can help companies prepare for uncertain times and make the most of emerging opportunities. But accuracy is just the start. The right approach should also provide guidance on which factors impact forecasts the most, and by how much. It should be adaptable to sudden changes in the market, like financial shocks or health scares. Ultimately, it needs to support the integrated business planning process that companies use to make real-life decisions every day.

Analytic Edge’s Integrated Business Planning solution meets all these objectives by starting with state-of-the-art forecasting models, built around the key drivers of the business. Reinforcement Learning algorithms are then be applied to continuously recalibrate the forecast based on emerging trends. The importance of different drivers like pricing, competition or macro-economic factors is updated as trends emerge. This forecast feeds ‘always on’ planning and simulation tools, allowing users to build new business plans, update projections, or track progress versus the plan. They can also understand what’s behind any shortfalls or sudden gains through integrated variance analysis tools. This integrated approach helps businesses get more out of their forecasts by allowing them to build and modify their plans in near real-time, so they can respond effectively to new challenges and opportunities.

Dynamic Forecasting: Businesses are often confronted with uncertain situations characterized by high levels of variability, complexity and ambiguity. Such situations can result in sudden or unexpected changes in consumer behavior as well as changes in underlying business drivers. Changes in consumer behavior may reflect in terms of what, where and how they buy. Some categories might see gains, while others might see sales drop unexpectedly. As a result, businesses struggle to find ways to measure, prioritize, and quickly respond to the new challenges they face. In such situations, forecasting techniques that rely purely on historical data no longer deliver desired results. A more modern and responsive approach is required.

The Dynamic Forecasting solution from Analytic Edge combines data integration with an Artificial Intelligence driven forecasting process that reduces reliance on historical data, reacts faster to recent trends and allows forecasts to incorporate changes in consumer behavior. It continuously recalibrates with every data update and improves forecast accuracy over time, helping brands plan ahead and stay on top in fast-evolving business environments.

Assortment Optimization: Today’s shoppers are not only overwhelmed by too many choices but are also increasingly pressed for time. A typical shopper spends just a few seconds looking for a specific brand before settling for an alternative. In addition, shoppers make a high level of unplanned purchases, with more than 50% of purchase decisions being made in front of the shelf. In such a scenario, it becomes critical for manufacturers and retailers to optimize both their assortment of products as well as their arrangement on store shelves for maximum impact. Analytic Edge’s Assortment Optimization solution uses Dynamic Competitive Modeling to simulate the effects of transferred demand and help determine the optimal assortment of products and SKUs that will maximize sales and margins. It analyzes the increment of each SKU’s volume to its brand and category, as well as how much volume reflects a switch from other products. This insight helps manufacturers and retailers maximize segment and category sales.

The Visionary Leader at the Helm of Analytic Edge

Rahul Budhraja is the Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Analytic Edge. He has over 20 years’ experience in business strategy, marketing and consumer insights, & operations with P/L responsibility, client engagement, people, and vendor management. He also has an extensive expertise in sales and marketing effectiveness in CPG and Retail industry.