Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

I think one plae to begin is a book called The Portable MBA. It will have some basic info about analytics (as the title implies, it's a basic overview of the whole discipline). A good book to have around anyway.

Having said that there are a ton of books out there on the topic. Here's my caveat. The more you dig into these, the more complex and quasi-scientific they become. At that level, it's really for specialists and if you really want to gather P&G-level info you need to connect with someone who does just that. It's a specialized discipline, and you need specialized skills.

The only way you will get that information in a format that is real-time and useful for what you want to do is to talk to your customers in a structured fashion about their buying processes.

There is an article on my web site called The Sales Autopsy[sm] which will help you with those marketing analytics.

www.geibelmarketing.com/autopsy.htm

I've been deeply involved in marketing analytics for many years now -- at P&G, Frito-Lay, Playtex, and dozens of clients of Dialogue Marketing Group (formerly associated with OR/MS Dialogue).

I've also applied the same basic approaches for smaller and medium-sized businesses, served as a knowledge expert for proprietary analytics systems, taught analytics in the MBA program at Xavier University, consulted with a leading analytics and syndicated data firm, and ghost-authored a book on the subject.

With all that said, I can tell you that what you want to do is a major undertaking if you want it done right, and often we recommend a less sophisticated approach (than is possible) to solve a real world problem.

The first thing you'll want to do is be very clear in defining your objective, determining how you'll use the results, and assessing what the result will really be worth to you.

If you want to talk about this, feel free to contact me offline.