The Digits: Companies Want Solid Analytics, Just Not Right Now

According to research recently released from Ventana Research, companies clearly see improving analytics as a way to elevate revenue. They also value improvement in sales-related analytics as a method to direct the sales pipeline and forecasting process as well as a way to measure sales department efficacy. However while 60% want to make sales analytics more accessible and easy-to-use, only 24 percent are planning to actually alter the way they generate and apply analytics in the next 12 to 18 months. The reasons for this, according to Ventana, are budget concerns, lack of a solid IT infrastructure, and digital agencies which are not “in the loop” of corporate operations, unable to penetrate the psychological barriers to new technology adaptation.

Other findings include;

40 percent want to be able to rent analytics tools as software as a service

29 percent want to access the metrics easily via mobile devices.

30 percent of organizations studied still use spreadsheets universally for analytics

55 percent of these organizations are unhappy with their analytics processes.

Unhappy companies mean opportunities for digital agencies to step in with user-friendly, effective analytic systems. Brands have a slew of choices in marketing platforms, yet the most critical functions that any platform will facilitate need to be tailored to the specific needs of each company. That requires a strong understanding of the importance of data and how it translates as strategy on the part of marketers and their clients.

“In most cases the marketing organization has not invested into analytics, and that failure has impacted its efficiency and contribution to the organization,” stated Mark Smith, CEO and EVP of Research at Ventana Research “Just tabulating numbers in spreadsheets and presenting the results is not sufficient, since it does not provide the needed support for effective competition and revenue generation.”

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