Ventana Research Finds Business Opportunity for Customer Analytics

PLEASANTON, CA, November 30, 2010 (Press-News.org) New benchmark research released today by Ventana Research indicates that while an array of customer analytics are used by organizations, most focus on cost containment rather than bottom-line business issues, limiting the maturity of business use of analytics in customer-facing operations.

This major research on Customer Analytics, the latest from the leading business technology research firm, analyzed input from hundreds of organizations around the world to assess the maturity and direction of their efforts. Ventana Research undertook this benchmark research to acquire real-world information about maturity, trends and best practices in how organizations use analytics and key indicators to optimize customer-facing operations and maximize customer loyalty and profitability. It explores how they do this now, how their employees view the current processes and tools, plans they have to change or improve them, and benefits they hope to gain by doing so.

The findings offer fresh research-based information on companies' attitudes toward customer analytics. They confirm that metrics and key indicators are important, and are used most often to evaluate cost- and budget-related factors. And they show that analytics processes are not very effective in most organizations; almost three-quarters of them spend most of their time in the analytics process in unproductive activities such as waiting for data, reviewing it for quality and consistency, and preparing it for analysis. Moreover, it takes 70 percent of organizations one to two weeks to provide updated metrics and KPIs to people. These issues prevent innovative use of advanced analytic technologies that are forward looking like predictive or that analyze text and voice across multiple channels of customer interactions.

For customer analytics to deliver value, they must be available to those who need them, but this, too, is an issue for many organizations. Fewer than half have analytics generally available at any level other than the individual business unit (54%), and in fewer than 30 percent are analytics completely available. More managers (60%) want to significantly improve the use of customer analytics than was the case for participants overall (44%), which fits with the finding that in the customer service channels analytics are least often completely available to them (23% vs. 29% for executives).

The research detected positive signs regarding the interest of organizational leaders in customer analytics. More than half of the heads of business units (53%) are very engaged in establishing requirements for analytics, as are 37 percent of executives. Of all the levels of roles in the organization, executives have analytics completely available most often, and 68 percent of them cited customer satisfaction by channel as their most important metric.

"The research makes clear that to improve customer analytics, organizations will have to upgrade process and technologies," noted Richard Snow, VP and Research Director of Customer and Contact Center Research at Ventana Research. "Nearly two-thirds of organizations acknowledge the need to make it simpler to provide analytics and metrics, but here again changes will largely be aimed at improving operational efficiency rather than business effectiveness. One area of concern is data integration, as to develop customer analytics organizations must bring together data from a variety of systems. Another area is the use of analytics from predictive to applying to text and speech data that can help organizations innovate and improve competitiveness in the industry."

Ventana Research will detail the findings of this benchmark research in a live interactive webinar on December 14th, 2010 at 10:00 am Pacific time that will discuss the research findings and offer recommendations for improvement. Key research findings to be discussed will include:

- the current state of organizations' thinking on how to apply analytics for efficient management of customer relationships and improved customer experience
- patterns in the adoption of new methods of analytics in response to the latest thinking on best practices.
- what types of measures, metrics and indicators are most important.
- the current state, future direction of and potential investments in analytics
- existing levels of competency in using customer analytics.
- attitudes toward customer analytics software.

Register for the Webinar - http://www.ventanaresearch.com/cam/cam.aspx?id=4053.

The research was sponsored by IBM and SPSS. Those interested in learning more about the benchmark research can find additional information at http://www.ventanaresearch.com/cam/. As a part of your registration you will receive insights and education from Ventana Research on using technology effectively in business.

About Ventana Research
Ventana Research is the leading benchmark research and advisory services firm. We provide expert guidance to help organizations manage and optimize performance - to become not only more efficient but more effective. Our unparalleled insights and best practices guidance are based on our rigorous research-based benchmarking indexes of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions worldwide. The combination we offer of benchmark research, rigorous market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver business and technology education and expertise to our clients where and when needed. The Ventana Research Indexes - the Value Index and the Benchmark Index family - have redefined the research industry by providing accessible, easy-to-use research-based business and technology guidance to businesses.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; the many business and IT professionals worldwide who are members of our community benefit from Ventana Research's insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter (http://twitter.com/ventanaresearch), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pleasanton-CA/Ventana-Research/69483545408?ref=ts), LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1625427&trk=anet_ug_hm), and Business Week's Business Exchange (http://bx.businessweek.com/). Ventana Research was ranked the #1 analyst firm you can trust in enterprise software for 2009 for its relevance to the industry. We focus on business and technology trends and best practices that maximize organizations' potential to perform while reducing the time, cost and risk and still achieve optimal outcomes.

Media: Copies of benchmark research report and interviews are available upon request.

Media Contact: Marisela Reynoso (925) 474-0060 marketing@ventanaresearch.com

Website: http://www.ventanaresearch.com