Blog
Optimising Catalogue Yield
Maximising catalogue yield can significantly increase sales value and profit in businesses as large as Office Depot's Viking Direct brand. Working with the CRM and Customer Insight team we developed an analytics based model that reduces catalogue wastage, reduces cross-catalogue cannibalisation and increases future yield from catalogue mailings by identifying the optimum time to launch outbound catalogue, promotional and re-activation mailings. From the insight generated by our work it is possible to increase the volume of business generated at the same time as reducing the cost to generate the business.
End to End E-Business Design and Implementation
Design and Implementation of a fully scaleable internationalised e-business platform for one of France's largest privately owned financial sector companies. Within 6 months the platform was attracting and processing €25 million mortgage applications per year. This passed €65 million after 12 months and is currently running at an annualised rate of around €120 million. Due to the dramatic success of the business platform the business is now independent.
Precision Marketing and CRM
Data Analysis, Statistics and Data Mining are critical technologies for Marketing and CRM directors. With the range, power and complexity of today's analytical systems, matching the right technology solution to a business need requires considerable depth of knowledge and breadth of experience to ensure a commercial payback from corporate scale CRM systems. Working as the UK & Ireland Data Mining programme manager with SAS, the world leader in analytic technologies, I have advised a wide selection of the worlds leading companies on the optimum use of data analytics and analytic CRM.
Data Mining of Psychometric Scores
Design of an integrated Internet based system for capturing an insight into website visitor's psychometric profiles to optimise the matching of value added content to customer preferences.
The system is capable of capturing indicators of a website visitor's psychometric profile, validating the indicator against results obtained from standard psychometric tests and passing the results as a set of scoring variables to SAS Enterprise Miner or analytical tool of choice.
Retail SKU Level Time Series Forecasting
Implementation of a SKU level forecasting system for the sundries business unit of the Body Shop responsible for all the Body Shop's accessories and clothing. The objective of the system was to improve the accuracy of forecasts, to reduce inventory and to improve the ex-stock service level whilst reducing the overall size of the stockholding.
Trading Floor Supervisory Expert System
Design and Implementation of a supervisory Expert System to monitor core infrastructure in the Zurich ForEx corporate trading room. The objective of the system was to develop analytics instantiated in an Expert System written in the DEC / Carnegie Mellon OPS5 language to predict system failure and ensure 24 / 7 / 365 trading floor availability
Systems Dynamic Modeling for Strategic Planning
Development of a system dynamics model to model stakeholder, pressure group and political response to possible future commercial initiatives and advertising campaigns. The objective of the system dynamics model was to help the corporate planning and HR function better understand and predict the likely interactions between and responses of the large number of interested 3rd parties. In the highly politicised world of tobacco production and sales only a systems dynamics model was capable of modeling the complexity of interactions. The project was based around insights gained from Stafford Beer's work on Management Cybernetics.
EFMD Societal Strategy Project
Visiting Professor working alongside Professor Igor Ansoff in the Societal Strategy Project . A two year industry sponsored project to establish the ground rules for business capability and legitimacy in a global market economy.
Postgraduate & Undergraduate Teaching
Business school lecturer. Teaching Marketing and Statistics at undergraduate level and Marketing, Statistics, Management Cybernetics and Strategy at the MBA postgraduate level.
Forecasting and Corporate Planning Research
Industry sponsored research into planning and forecasting . Elaboration of best practice working within major companies such as ICI, BAT, Pilkinton Glass, Imperial Foods. Click on the links below for published articles reporting this research:
The Journal of Long Range Planning
OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science
About the blog
The Blog page is intended to give a few thumbnail sketches of the sort of work we do. Though the details of our work are always confidential it is still possible to give an overview of some of the projects we have been involved with. Contact us to find out more.