An info|SMART company is one that:

• Establishes a deeper understanding of business information and trends to enable timely, relevant, and fact-based decisions
• Predicts trends and customer behaviors to stay ahead of the competition
• Takes the necessary actions based on all of that insight. Such actions could be strategic or tactical

The info|SMART concept enables companies to compete and generate revenue in this rapidly changing business environment based on the information already in their possession. It is the end-to-end enablement and management of critical data and analytics capabilities, bringing about direct impact on how businesses get, keep, and grow their customers.

Info|SMART is based on four key pillars: making information available, accessible, effective, and operational.

Making information available
There's no denying that the thirst for data has grown. Companies track all kinds of data, from customer to billing, operational, channel, and product, just to name a few. Very often, however, data efforts have been led by IT with inadequate business input. Add to that disparate data fields and systems, and the resulting data warehouse is so complex that it leaves most potential business users helpless.

Instead, companies need to develop a data strategy that defines the critical data elements to be collected and how that data should be maintained. Defining KPIs to compare data between source systems and the data warehouse is critical. Setting strict service levels for each of the defined KPIs and monitoring these service levels on an ongoing basis allow organizations to identify and address data quality issues in a timely basis.

With data quality management in place, companies can create individual data marts for sales, customer profiles, revenue, churn, customer service, or other categories that are simpler to follow and use than the traditional mash-up of data.

Making information accessible
With information now easily available, relevant stakeholders across the company must actually use it. However, companies deploying business intelligence (BI) tools face multiple pitfalls. For example, IT departments often provide the software and data access to business users without any guidance. Business users, likely daunted by the new environment and the task of setting up new reports, may regard the overall BI implementation as a failure. In addition, even when automated reports are made available, often the level of complexity and detail is overwhelming. And users who do actually use the system face performance issues, with reports taking from several minutes to hours to obtain.

Peppers & Rogers Group recommends using predefined standard dashboard and report templates that are customized based on role and industry. These templates can adapt the level of detail to the business user, while their industry specialization allows for faster implementation and deployment (e.g., number of accounts per customer for the bank CEO or churn details for the telecom CEO).

Making information effective
Dashboards provide visibility, so executives can make decisions to improve their business. Which decisions to make, however, can be another challenge when working with data. This is why analytics plays such an important role in any info|SMART company.

In each stage of the customer lifecycle--awareness, acquisition, growth, retention, and win-back--there are numerous analytical models that can be used to understand how to modify customer behavior and generate revenue. Models include those that segment customers based on value, needs, and behavior, then apply social network analysis, competitive analysis, and other data to help create onboarding strategies, trigger-based marketing models, and channel optimization, to name a few.

In the telecom space, for example, models such as churn prediction offer a prediction window of about two months, ample time for operators to take the necessary actions to retain their highest-value customers. By developing targeted retention offers to high churn propensity customers, some info|SMART companies managed to reduce their churn by 30 to 40 percent within a period of six to 12 months.

Making information operational
The ultimate goal of an info|SMART company is to be able to turn information into profitable actions. These actions can be strategic or tactical.

From a strategic perspective, info|SMART enables timely, fact-based decision making for the senior management team. The insights from the various dashboards and models are presented to senior executives periodically in war room settings where the latest trends and leading indicators are discussed and strategic decisions are made. Market trends, implicit forces, competitive landscape, customer responses, and commercial gaps can be quickly synthesized into predefined measurable levers.

From a tactical perspective, business unit leaders can take action to achieve many objectives such as customer acquisition, growth, or retention. The analysis will help them meet goals around which segments to target, how best to execute certain campaigns, and the correct channel mix to reach customers optimally.

Breaking down data barriers
An info|SMART approach to data strategy establishes a clear balance between business units and IT, ensuring, on one hand, that business strategies are adequately translated to business requirements that guide IT strategy and actions, and on the other hand, that IT responds with value and enables those business strategies.

With margins shrinking, customer expectations growing, and competition heating up in virtually all sectors, what better way to compete than to make the most of the information already at hand? What an organization knows about its business and its customers is something that can't be replicated by competitors. By becoming info|SMART, businesses will be able to meet new challenges by making informed decisions based on valuable insight that no other company has. It's not enough to be a smart company. To succeed, a company must be info|SMART.

Where are you in your path to becoming an info|SMART company?