Outsmart the recession

Which companies are weathering the economic storm?

While the economic crisis has caused some companies to close their doors, others are finding ways to survive in spite of the downturn. The businesses that are weathering the economic storm are the ones who’ve used the crisis as an opportunity to approach business differently. They’re using analytics to find new and smarter ways to save and make money with more efficient processes, laser-focused marketing, increased cross- and up-selling, and more.

Read on for just a few of their stories – and see how to apply the same principles to your business.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM grows deep roots with customers
Using SAS, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, one of the most-successful brands in gift retailing, has increased its customer retention rate by 10 percent, increased its customer base from 10 million to 30 million and increased the retention rate of its best customer segment to more than 80 percent.

“SAS Business Analytics helps us put a laser focus on knowing our customers, reducing operating expenses and innovating for the future,’’ says Chris McCann, President of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. “As our business has grown from one flower shop to an online gift retailer serving more than 30 million customers, we need SAS’ abilities to really know our customers and turn that knowledge into action.

“SAS has given me the ability to grow my business, whether the economy has been up or down,” says McCann. “At a time when other retailers were struggling to survive, 1-800-FLOWERS has seen revenues grow.”

Monster Canada matches quality applicants with quality jobs
With the economic downturn, keeping the focus on customers became more crucial than ever for Canada’s leading career management portal. “Our BI team uses SAS and develops advanced behavior models to provide outstanding service to employers and job seekers alike,” says Jean-Paul Isson, Vice President of Global Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics for Monster Worldwide. As a result, Monster Canada has increased its sales productivity, marketing efficiency and customer retention rate by double digits.

Using SAS, Monster Canada’s Business Intelligence team performs advanced Web mining and analyzes job posting performance to help companies improve the quantity and quality of applicants they receive. This value-add has helped Monster Canada increase its customer retention rate by 15 percent.

The company also uses analytics to help improve sales. A recent article from ITBusiness.ca reports, “[Using SAS,] Monster was able to identify ‘high-opportunity’ customers – the select group of clients who account for the bulk of the firm’s profits. This intelligence has helped Monster to improve cross-selling and up-selling by 40 percent.”

Sub-Zero Wolf Inc. – reducing warranty claims 
In an industry where product defects can take, on average, six months to a year to identify and address, Sub-Zero Inc. and its corporate companion Wolf Appliance Inc. are using SAS to cut those times in half or more.

Josh Becker, Manager of Reliability at Sub-Zero Inc., recently told Warranty Week how well SAS has worked in identifying field issues over the past five years. In fact, it’s worked so well that Sub-Zero was able to focus their Reliability Engineering resources almost completely on issue management and corrective action implementation.

Now Sub-Zero is busy migrating to version 4.1 of SAS Warranty Analysis. That, Becker said, is a clear signal that it’s working. “Economic times right now are pretty tough,” said Becker. “Yet we’re still going through with this upgrade and taking on the costs associated with development and deployment. Our executive team and board of directors have consistently stood behind the system over the last five years. A major driver of their support has been the big-dollar ROI examples that I have been able to provide them every year.”