Business Tip 10
Turning Innovative Analysis into Best Practices

Even as technology advances, one part of the ROI equation remains constant:
Success of your sales strategy is dependent on the business people driving it, regardless of what technology and infrastructure you have in place.

The efforts of analysts and managers in your enterprise drive business direction and influence key performance indicators. These same individuals are often the source of the next great idea that serves as a building block for a successful sales strategy going forward. Unfortunately, all too often, the full value of these insights is not realized, as concepts remain local and successful tactics never make it to other groups of stakeholders who stand to benefit. This common situation hinders an otherwise strong sales strategy and ultimately puts a glass ceiling on bottom line results.

Take Company X for example: The Company X retail team works in a silo to perform data analysis. While crunching numbers, the retail team finds an effective way to identify category development opportunities using US census data combined with store level POS to view sales per capita.

Ideas like this add a clear measure of effectiveness to data analysis, but the benefits may not significantly affect the organization’s bottom line if they do not migrate beyond this team’s silo. A situation like this calls for the creation of a Best Practice. It sounds like a simple idea, but remember that good ideas only become Best Practices when people adopt them.

Three key steps to turning great ideas into Best Practices

1. Discover Identify business analyses and processes that return value-adding insights and generate ROI. Results should be repeatable and applicable across multiple stakeholders.

   The retail team in Company X developed a smart way to look at their business, and the method is universal - a perfect start for a Best Practice

2. Document Document exactly how you arrived at the valuable insights, or what the business process was: which calculations were used, the best medium used to display the insights, and what data was needed. Also document any special instructions needed to effectively generate results.

   Company X then recorded how to acquire the Census and POS data and how they were combined. The details, along with corresponding calculations and formulas, were documented as a new standard process. Presentation notes and details regarding the most compelling concepts derived from the new analyses were captured as well.

3. Distribute Provide the tested/confirmed process to the stakeholders that it will benefit. Include all steps and details needed to ensure that the value-added insights can be consistently generated and delivered.

   Company X management incorporated the new practice into routine analysis, and distributed the process to other internal retail teams. The new process was included in the store level execution strategy.

Software vendors have recognized the importance of defining and distributing best practices, and many solutions already include the ability to do so. For example, XP3 by Interactive Edge addresses this need by providing business users the ability to create Best Practices and preserve and distribute best-in-class analytics as library templates. This ability enables analysts to solidify great ideas for repeatability and consistency. Innovative analyses and strong tactical execution make the difference between weak and strong selling strategies. Make great ideas the building blocks of your sales strategy by turning them into Best Practices.

The data, products and accounts depicted in this example are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual data, products or accounts is purely coincidental.