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Victoria Mindova

Detailed business analysis is the secret of success for all companies that want to be leaders rather than followers in the world of business. This was the conclusion made by the participants in the first forum "Trends in Business Analytics – Perspectives and Opportunities in the New Era Ahead". Information flows generated from various business sources brought competitiveness, supply and demand in the world to a completely different level. New technologies and innovative programs go out of date every day, and consumers in all sectors of the economy, dipped in the ocean of information, products and services, look for the combination of quality, price and efficiency to meet their specific needs.

Under these conditions, extensive analysis of the market, customers and opportunities for development in new directions are vital processes for the success of a company. The Athens event was attended by leaders of companies in areas such as marketing, IT and banking, which produce, use or provide turnkey solutions for implementing a thorough analysis of market needs.

One of the most important elements of business analysis is the segmentation of user groups on a much deeper level than the methods previously applied. Athina Kanioura – the head of the Greek Department of IGEM with a focus on trade in goods, marketing, communication and effectiveness improvement – presented the matter.

"We can not rely on consumer loyalty nowadays," said Kanioura. Marketing research is still based on the known divisions by gender, age, social position and the other known parameters, but the specialist stressed that the new approach requires deeper diving into the awareness of the needs of the specific company’s target group. "Consumers are extremely demanding and social demographics is no longer sufficient for determining the marketing strategies."

Companies realize the need of advanced statistical analyzes of effective methods for forecasting and optimizing the activity, which leads to the need of creating new systems and opening new positions to meet these needs. Now is the turn of the companies that develop in the field of high technologies to offer technological solutions for risk analysis and for supporting the decision making process. Companies like IBM, CyberStream LTD, SAS Global Analytic Solutions Manager, each of which has developed its platform for detailed business analysis in different sectors, made presentations of such systems.
 
Kyriakos Kokkinos, Global Services Manager at IBM, explained that the company he represents has focused on developing the so-called smart systems operations optimization, saving money and making life easier. He gave as an example how the introduction of innovative technologies in public transport management in over four thousand cities worldwide has lowered the cost of these services by 50 million pounds in each city. Electronic systems for logistics management in transport can save a quarter of the expenditure in this sector and increase sales by 10 percent.

The innovation systems raise the need of the corresponding human resource able to use them so as to optimize the activity and achieve better results. This position is already assigned to the CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer), who is responsible for the intellectual capital management. The CKO is also responsible for maximizing the return on investment in people, processes and intellectual property so that the company benefits from the available resources in the best possible way. The results of the CKO’s activity are the base for making concrete decisions about the future of the company.

In this sense, technologies and the very detailed analysis of the market and customer demands are essential for the activity of a company, but not a panacea, said the senior manager of Piraeus Bank Vassilis Agelis. Any analysis would be useless without any human factor.