What can We do to make You Care?: The Power of Web Analytics

The Internet had become an important tool for companies, organizations and even for small time businessmen. It became a primary instrument for marketing, advertising and transaction of one’s products. It helped a lot of businessmen in promoting and introducing their products not only in one place but in various regions around the world. But, there is more to the use of internet other than making a product look or taste good it can be also use to track the marketing behavior of consumers, gather data of competitors and even update you to upcoming future dilemmas. That is why the web is considered a very vital utensil in achieving competitive advantage.

However, having an internet site with all your products in is not the most important case we must take in consideration. What we need to understand is that your internet site is more than a web page, in it there are various data encrypted that may give its owner a surreal blur like of feeling when we see it or even try to interpret it, but those hidden data may be the answer to our competitive advantage. So how do we interpret these bundles of random information? By using Web Analytics of course!

Web Analytics is the extensive study, continuous collection, interpretation and reporting of various internet data to maximize web usage. This includes websites potential and opportunities, visibility to prospected demographics and their feedbacks, as well as website performance.

During our class in data mining under Mr. Ramon Duremdes Jr. my fellow colleagues (Danielle Benig, Camille Caleon, Jerika Hemedez and Julie Nolasco) learned that Web analytics works like this:

First, when you visited a website you will abscond with significant amount of data depending on what data collection tool that site has and it will report it back in the form of data tables, graphs or text. Web Logs for example captures almost every bit of data the user leaves behind while Web beacons only get what the website owner wants it to get.

These tools are so useful at the same time effective and efficient because manual collection of data from the net may take months to interpret and report so some of them do not come in cheap prices. But some Web Analytics tools are free like Google Analytics. Our class may never understood its full potential but according to our given reports yesterday about Business Intelligence and Web Analytics it concludes that Google Analytics can be useful in Harnessing data not only for companies but also for students who are just starting to grasp the true essence and power of Web Analytics.

According to Avinash Kaushik’s Book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, critical components of a successful web analytics consist of the following elements:

FOCUS ON CUSTOMER CENTRICITY

As I had said earlier an internet website is not only there for viewing and marketing purpose only. It will only serve its true purpose if it had change something in your company. If the customer had made a transaction, commented on your website or even suggested on it they you can say that your web had served you well because with those kind of actions you will not only process quantitative data you will also extract qualitative data from your customers and these data are nothing and useless without the other. Given quantitative data you can learn some of the market trends that are growing in the present time and with qualitative data you will know WHY these trends are showing up. In return you can improve on your products and in your website itself for the benefit of the consumers.

SOLVE FOR BUSINESS QUESTIONS

Stand out from your competitors. You may have the same genre of business but competitive advantage develops through the business questions you develop and answer.

If you are able to carry out more customer value compared to the neighboring company even if you have the same line of business you will be sue in standing out. So try to ask questions in your company: How can we serve our consumers better? What can we do to improve our service? How can we increase profit without sacrificing the benefits our consumers? Answering these questions with the use of your collected data will ensure you a better service to your consumers and better performance to your company.

FOLLOW THE 10/90 RULE

Spend ten percent of your allotted budget to your tools and ninety percent on your people. People are the most important asset of the company not the tools. The tools may offer a little helping hand but it is the people who are responsible of taking your company to great heights. Taking care of your most important asset will most likely yield better performance in work as well as earning their loyalty. Successful Web Analysis do not come from tools, they come from the people who uses those tools.

Hire great analysts. People who are:

· Have used more than one web analytics tool extensively

· Before doing any important analysis, visit the website and look at the web pages

· Their core approach is customer centric

· Know the different gathering tools, their uses and applicability

· Are comfortable in the quantitative and qualitative worlds

· Are avid explorers

· Are effective communicators

· Are street smart

· Play offense and not just defense

And last but the not the least…..

IDENTIFY OPTIMAL ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Before anything else people in your company must know their roles and responsibilities to avoid clashes and conflict with work. Having the best organizational structure would not only avoid conflicts but also ensure proper workflow on the company. When using teams or groups for research or projects be sure that each members is cool with the other. Choosing the right combination of people will result to better performance.

In our research on SMART’s company background we have found out the it followed almost all of the rules the Kaushik mentioned in his book. Not do they only focuse their service on thir customers they have an effective organizational structure, and have a set of employees that are dedicated to their jobs and through that SMART do not only have a great sense of BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE but also a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE over its competitors.