Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Carl,

I checked it out, it looks like an interesting and well-designed application but without giving it a real good workout there is no way to determine its value, this would only happen over time in some real-world situations in which I could compare it side-to-side with Excel.

I will download the trial version and check it out thoroughly later as I am intrigued by what they say it can do.

Regardless, it would never replace Excel for me which I believe is an excellent product and not that hard to use. I am constantly finding new ways for it to make my job more efficient and professional.

I would recommend that you become proficient with Excel before/or at the same time as you learn this new product as that skill (Excel) is necessary in the business/marketing world as is the fundamental understanding of how spreadsheets work and the applications that exist for them.

In fact, what you will find is that you start "thinking" in Excel, meaning that you will find yourself in decision-making situations or for presentation purposes where you know the only way you can understand and make sense of something is to put it into Excel and turn it into whatever meaningful results you want and need.

I hope that helps.

Hi Carl

That’s an interesting bit of software spotting and a very valid question. I’m an extensive user of Excel to analyse business statistics both on a regular basis with well developed models and on an ad-hoc basis where the figures require a unique treatment for interpretation. I’ve only given this product a quick look over and I would like to report back in greater depth because it looks to be quite powerful and very versatile.

One of the biggest challenges in CRM and sales and marketing management is turning data which is recorded by the users into information which can be used.

That’s after I’ve persuaded the clients that it is worth while recording the data in the first place, but that’s another matter!

Raw data can be subject to many treatments to produce figures that managers can interpret in the context of their business and whilst there are a lot of recognised models for doing this, they only work “out of the box” if their company is following the model in the first place. Any business leader who bends his or her enterprise around someone else’s model or some other company’s software is, in my view misguided. The process should be the other way round!

This means that any spreadsheet analysis of company data requires an extensive set of consultations resulting in a modelling exercise to determine:

What data should be used to form the inputs?

What algorithms should be used to manipulate the data?

What comparisons and filters should be used to compare, sort and tabulate the data?

What interpretation and representation or reporting should be employed to understand the results?

The whole process is essentially very iterative, with early models producing interesting but nonsensical results and each successive refinement moving the analysis towards something which is truly useful.

Tableausoftware appears at first viewing to allow the raw data to be manipulated either from spreadsheets or more importantly from the data tables of a CRM system or database into a model which can be defined, almost on the fly. That is a huge advantage as the nonsense inherent in developing interpretive models can be distilled out as you go along.

Doing this from a CRM system without an in-built metrics package (Like Analytics in Siebel for instance) usually involves devising a set of data searches, exporting the data thus found into a spreadsheet, doing some basic manipulation and then banging this data into the model you have conceived.

It takes time and thought to sort and input the data and a lot of skill to devise the spreadsheets. Top end CRM systems will do it, but the set-up consultation can run into tens of thousands of dollars per scenario. Change the scenario (perhaps because it’s wrong!) and you can change the analysis, but rarely without spending a few more tens of thousands to do so.

And the analysis is only as good as the management can conceive the method, which is harder than it sounds as they can’t look at a pile of “what if” scenarios without going through the process a few times in the first place. Few have the time or the humility to do just that.

If this package will allow you to manipulate the data and the analytical method until the results start to look realistic, you will then be able to begin scenario building in detail, with a reasonable certitude that you are producing a model that has some real life relationship to your sales history, your past activities and any forecasts that don’t defy the laws of either statistical method or, if they involve feedback, classical chaos dynamics. That has to be good and you shouldn't need a doctorate in advanced maths to get at some useful figures, just a good analytical sales and marketing head!

Curious fact: Most complex formulae and macros found in spreadsheets continue to be used for years after their authors leave the company, without anyone who either uses them or rely on the figures they produce having a clue what they do! This Tableausoftware package looks at first glance like a move in the right direction.

Regards


Steve
Unimax Solutions

I'd love to know more about the cost, and about your ideas for utilization of the software...

... but if I had to give one word of advice, the word would be NO. You do not know if the software will suceed, and if the software fails in the market (most do) you will be left with some useless knowledge. There are many other software packages (Stevea mentioned Analytics in Siebel, for example) which are in wide use, and which there therefore an ongoing need for experts. And from nearly 20 years selling software, I would suggest that you should ever use a Beta or 1.0 release of anything.

Carl, if I were you, I would focus more on creating the underlying formulas, etc. to do market analysis. This skill will be useful whether used in Excell, in this wild new software package, or on a cocktail napkin.