• What we do
  • The People
  • About Us
  • Why Innovation Africa
  • Contact Us
Innovation AfricaCreating the Future Today
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
  • Recruit Better Data Analysts

    February 19, 2014 Editor 0

    In the big data talent wars, most companies feel they’re losing. Marketing leaders are finding it difficult to acquire the right analytical talent. In the latest CMO Survey, only 3.4% senior marketers believe they have the right talent. Business-to-business companies have a bigger gap than business-to-consumer companies, as do companies with a lower percentage of their sales coming from the internet.  And yet analytic skill is a must for effective marketing.

    Results indicate that companies with above-average marketing analytics talent experienced significantly greater rates of marketing return on investment (MROI) than companies with below average analytics talent (+4.18% vs. +2.51%). When it comes to profits, the same pattern emerged—companies that are above average on analytics talent experienced profitability increases of +4.69% compared to companies below average on analytics talent +2.71%. In short, while using any analytical skill truly is better than none, strong analytical skills are measurably better.

    So how do you find those people? Given how tight the market for analytical talent is – and how critical it is to a business growth – companies have to adopt different strategies for hiring and keeping people.  Some large companies have taken to acquiring start-ups or developing “research labs” jointly with academic institutions or organizations. But there are a range of tactics companies of any size can use to improve their analyst recruiting.

    The first is simply using more specific language. At one top retailer, the analytics team was looking to fill a direct marketing measurement position but was not satisfied with the direct marketing experience in the CVs the recruiting team was sharing with them.  So the analytics and recruiting teams came together to redefine the characteristics of the ideal candidate.   This collaboration led to searching CVs for a more targeted set of keywords (not generic “measurement” skills but advanced “segmentation” and “predictive analytics” capabilities). The new approach led to the discovery of dozens of qualified candidates. Similarly, at General Mills, recruiters looking for senior marketing analytics managers found that using more precise and discerning language cut search times in half.

    A second strategy is to use an “always on” approach to recruiting. As John Walthour, Director, Growth Insights & Analytics at General Mills, noted, “We know these positions will continue to be in demand at General Mills and so we no longer wait for a specific position to arise.” Still other employers search constantly in stealth mode for the best talent. For example, Beth Axelrod, SVP of Human Resources for eBay, works with companies such as Gild, which identifies prospective employees on the hard-science side of marketing analytics by examining the quality of their open code.

    A third component is beefing up management’s analytical skill. We find that senior executives often don’t have a clear sense of what’s needed from the analysis and, therefore, don’t ask questions that lead to helpful answers. Senior managers need to be educated to understand the basics and be able to ask good questions, such as probing the quality of the statistics being used or asking about how to incorporate new types of data types.

    Finally, in order to hire the best analysts, hiring managers may need to recognize that some softer business skills won’t come in the same person. Instead of holding out for the perfect total package, one banking company solved this issue by creating a mixed team of hard-core statisticians and marketers who together mined the data, analyzed the results, and developed marketing campaigns based on those results. After three months, the team was delivering better analytical insights, and both customer activity and revenues were nearly 10 times higher.

    Whatever the strategy, however, acquiring the right array of marketing analytics talent is critical to turning big data into a powerful capability for companies.


    Go to Source

    Related Posts

    • How CMOs Can Get CFOs on Their SideHow CMOs Can Get CFOs on Their Side
    • Can Your C-Suite Handle Big Data?Can Your C-Suite Handle Big Data?
    • Is Africa ready to climb the value chain in agriculture?Is Africa ready to climb the value chain in agriculture?
    • What If You Don’t Want to Be a Manager?
    • Keeping fruit, vegetables and cut flowers fresh longerKeeping fruit, vegetables and cut flowers fresh longer
    • The 2015 Global Innovation Economy SurveyThe 2015 Global Innovation Economy Survey
    Sovrn
    Share

    Categories: HBR, Insights

    Tags: Business analytics, Marketing performance measurement and management, Predictive analytics

    Creativity and cheating: Mwahahaha… How three common pitfalls of social enterprises can be avoided

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to our stories


 

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions September 21, 2020
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics August 3, 2020
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey! August 3, 2020
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic August 3, 2020
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations August 3, 2020

Categories

Archives

Popular Post-All time

  • A review on biomass-based... 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt ge... 697 views
  • Prize-winning projects pr... 692 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 612 views
  • Test Your Value Propositi... 537 views

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations
  • SME Innovation: 10 Priorities for Support Post-COVID-19 
  • Africa RISING Annual Progress Report 2018 – 2019 now available
  • Fodder beet feed supplementation delivers dairy success for Ethiopian farmers
  • Using theory of change for outcome-oriented research
  • Africa RISING partners publish soil fertility management guidebook

Tag Cloud

    africa African Agriculture Business Business model Business_Finance Company Crowdsourcing data Development East Africa economics Education Entrepreneur entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship ethiopia ghana Health_Medical_Pharma ict Information technology Innovation kenya knowledge Knowledge Management Leadership marketing mobile Mobile phone nigeria Open innovation Organization Research rwanda science Science and technology studies social enterprise social entrepreneurship south africa Strategic management strategy tanzania Technology Technology_Internet uganda

Categories

Archives

  • A review on biomass-based hydrogen production for renewable energy supply 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt gender inequality? 697 views
  • Prize-winning projects promote healthier eating, smarter crop investments 692 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Your Big Data Innovations in Agriculture 612 views
  • Test Your Value Proposition: Supercharge Lean Startup and CustDev Principles 537 views

Copyright © 2005-2020 Innovation Africa Theme created by PWT. Powered by WordPress.org