PosteMobile: Delivering insights that grow business

You have the tools to analyze the demographic and behavioral data in your client base, but how can you quickly transform those insights into actions that will increase sales and grow your business? PosteMobile – Poste Italiane's mobile virtual network operator -- can show you how.

"Our focus on clients and our strong commitment to relationships are some of the factors that have led to our growth," explains Vincenzo Imbriani, Business Support System Development Manager at PosteMobile. "Over the years, these customer interactions have produced a wealth of knowledge and information – and we understood their importance intuitively – but since we lacked adequate analytical tools, it was difficult to use this information."

"The objective of this project was clear: equip marketing and CRM groups with a data mining solution that will define and perform CRM-targeted campaigns in a timely manner," he adds. "When they are created from knowledge-based models (such as anticipated life cycle, the characteristics of service usage and the elasticity of spending as compared to price), campaigns will then be able to propose the right offers to clients at the right time."

A process designed to win
Analytical algorithms, which are at the heart of the solution, fall within an application architecture that uses SAS^® integration and analysis components, including:

• ETL tools to acquire and standardize data originating from the wealth of existing information.
• Data mining to develop algorithms.
• Query and reporting to allow marketing to fully and independently perform pertinent analyses, while offering management an overview of the situation that is always up to date.
• Scheduling to automate processes.
• Security to guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data.

The clarity of objectives and project requirements, combined with the ease of integrating the individual application components, contributed greatly to the initiative's success, which was completed in six months in collaboration with technology partner HP.

Intelligent lists and personalized campaigns
"Our objectives," says Imbriani, "have been clear from the start: analysis algorithms should not exist solely for their own purposes, rather they are to be used by marketing so clients receive the best offerings in relation to their profiles.

"For example," he adds, "the algorithm that uses various fundamental economic indicators can segment and shape a client's behavior over the entire life cycle, thus minimizing churn and promoting cross-selling, up-selling and loyalty. By extracting intelligent lists that are based on a client's future evolution, this tool equips our marketers to implement extremely targeted campaigns in a timely manner. We can now optimize costs and maximize revenue, because we avoid sending messages or promotions to clients who are already loyal and we can concentrate our resources on those clients who need more attention."

Elasticity of spending and propensity for purchasing
Two other data mining algorithms developed by PosteMobile address the same operational objectives. The first, which estimates the likelihood of a customer purchasing value-added services (in particular, the data service), specifically creates initiatives and promotions aimed at increasing client profitability. The second, which measures the elasticity of consumption and spending by using such variables as price and income, allows marketing to simulate alternative rate plans and to evaluate their impact on client segments.

"Integration of the knowledge-based models with execution tools," concludes Imbriani, "is certainly one of the greatest benefits offered by the project, because our primary objective was to implement CRM strategies based on the propensities and behaviors of clients. This solution allows us to pay continual attention to client needs. As a result, PosteMobile has the loyalty of its clients and is the leader in client satisfaction, according to a recent survey by a consumer association."

Through its focus on business intelligence solutions, Hewlett-Packard helped PosteMobile translate business decisions into competitive advantages, making full use of the company's investment in BI. The project group's efforts were focused on creating a solution that met three goals:

• Analysis. Implement a dynamic environment that marketers can use for personal productivity but that can also preform sophisticated analyses
• Data mining models. Create a back-office environment that includes three data mining models to forecast client behaviors in relation to their life cycles, to forecast clients' purchase of strategic products and to study the elasticity of spending.
• Reporting. Implement a reporting component for the two institutional and periodic subcategories

This article was originally published in ita.sas.com.

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