Written by over 20 thought leaders from ZS Associates, Inc., The Power of Sales Analytics shares strategic insights, pragmatic advice, and illustrative case studies and approaches for using analytics to support sales force decisions and drive results. The authors describe how leading companies have successfully used analytics to improve key sales force effectiveness drivers such as customer targeting, sales process design, sales force size and structure, territory design, talent management, incentive compensation, goal setting, and performance management. The book also has a blueprint for implementing critical analytic capabilities cost-effectively by assembling the right combination of internal and external resources. The Power of Sales Analytics is edited by the founders of ZS Associates, Andris A. Zoltners and Prabhakant Sinha, who have personally consulted with more than 200 companies in over 20 countries, and business writer Sally E. Lorimer. As experts in the field of sales analytics, the editors have helped the sales leaders of Fortune 500 companies, as well as smaller entrepreneurial businesses, tap into the power of analytics to enable smarter sales strategies, support more efficient operations, facilitate more effective execution, and ultimately drive results. They are also coauthors of numerous academic articles and books on sales force management, including Building a Winning Sales Force, Accelerating Sales Force Performance, Sales Force Design for Strategic Advantage, The Complete Guide to Sales Force Incentive Compensation, and Building a Winning Sales Management Team. In addition to cofounding ZS Associates, Zoltners is a professor emeritus of marketing at Northwestern University s Kellogg School of Management, and Sinha is a former Kellogg faculty member. Both continue to teach sales executives Zoltners at Kellogg and Sinha at the Indian School of Business and the Gordon Institute of Business Science in South Africa. ZS Associates is a global leader in sales and marketing consulting, outsourcing, technology, and software. For more than 30 years, ZS has helped companies across a range of industries deliver greater impact through their sales and marketing investments and operations.

Today, an effective marketing analytics executive is even more important than a brilliant data scientist. That's because successful analytics investments now require managerial orchestration of many elements that go far beyond conventional definitions of analytics. Marketing and Sales Analytics examines the experiences of sales and marketing leaders and practitioners who have successfully built high value analytics capabilities in multiple industries. Then, drawing on their experiences, top analytics consultant Cesar Brea introduces overarching frameworks and specific tools that can help you achieve the same levels of success in your own organization. Brea shows how to: Establish the "ecosystemic" conditions for analytic success Reconcile the diverse perspectives that impact analytics initiatives ("Business v. IT," "Sales v. Marketing," "Analysts v. Creatives v. Managers," and "Everyone v. Finance") Decide what success will "look like" Agree on the questions to ask Organize both internal and external data Establish operational flexibility, and balance flexibility with efficiency Recruit the right people and organize them optimally Intelligently decide what to do yourself, and what to hire vendors for Balance research, analytics, and testing Implement proven research, analytics, and testing strategies Deliver results through storytelling (and recognize its limitations) Control the biases that creep into analytics research Maintain momentum, implement governance, and "keep score"

A "how-to" guide to boosting sales through predictive and prescriptive analytics Data Driven is a uniquely practical guide to increasing sales success, using the power of data analytics. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the topic, this book shows you how to transform the corporate sales function by leveraging big data into better decision-making, more informed strategy, and increased effectiveness throughout the organization. Engaging and informative, this book tells the story of a newly hired sales chief under intense pressure to deliver higher performance from her team, and how data analytics becomes the ultimate driver behind the sales function turnaround. Each chapter features insightful commentary and practical notes on the points the story raises, and one entire chapter is devoted solely to laying out the Prescriptive Action Model step-by-step giving you the actionable guidance you need to put it into action in your own organization. Predictive and prescriptive analytics is poised to change corporate sales, and companies that fail to adapt to the new realities and adopt the new practices will be left behind. This book explains why the Prescriptive Action Model is the key corporate sales weapon of the 21st Century, and how you can implement this dynamic new resource to bring value to your business. Exploit one of the last remaining sources of competitive advantage Re-engineer the sales function to optimize success rates Implement a more effective analytics model to drive efficient change Boost operational effectiveness and decision making with big data There are fewer competitive edges to gain than ever before. The only thing that's left is to execute business with maximum efficiency and make the smartest business decisions possible. Predictive analytics is the essential method behind this new standard, and Data Driven is the practical guide to complete, efficient implementation.

"Mesmerizing & fascinating..." —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer "The Freakonomics of big data." —Stein Kretsinger, founding executive of Advertising.com Award-winning | Used by over 30 universities | Translated into 9 languages An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating — surprisingly accessible — introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics (aka machine learning) works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a “how to” for hands-on techies, the book serves lay readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques. Prediction is booming. It reinvents industries and runs the world. Companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities are seizing upon the power. These institutions predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die. Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats risk, boosts sales, fortifies healthcare, streamlines manufacturing, conquers spam, optimizes social networks, toughens crime fighting, and wins elections. How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, flourishing unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise! This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn. Predictive analytics (aka machine learning) unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future drives millions of decisions more effectively, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate. In this lucid, captivating introduction — now in its Revised and Updated edition — former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they even know it themselves. Why early retirement predicts a shorter life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. Five reasons why organizations predict death — including one health insurance company. How U.S. Bank and Obama for America calculated the way to most strongly persuade each individual. Why the NSA wants all your data: machine learning supercomputers to fight terrorism. How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy! How companies ascertain untold, private truths — how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide how long convicts remain in prison. 182 examples from Airbnb, the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, the IRS, LinkedIn, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, PayPal, Pfizer, Spotify, Uber, UPS, Wikipedia, and more. How does predictive analytics work? This jam-packed book satisfies by demystifying the intriguing science under the hood. For future hands-on practitioners pursuing a career in the field, it sets a strong foundation, delivers the prerequisite knowledge, and whets your appetite for more. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics constantly affects our daily lives. Whether you are a

How does a CEO, manager, or entrepreneur begin to sort out what defines and drives a good customer experience and how it can be measured and made actionable? If you know how well the customer experience is satisfying your customers and you know how to increase their satisfaction, you can then increase sales, return visits, recommendations, loyalty, and brand engagement across all channels. More reliable and more useful data leads to better decisions and better results. Innovating Analytics is also about the need for a comprehensive measurement ecosystem to accurately assess and improve the other elements of customer experience. This is a time of great change and great opportunity. The companies that use the right tools and make the right assessments of how to satisfy their customers will have the competitive advantage. Innovating Analytics introduces an index that measures a customer’s likelihood to recommend and the likelihood to detract. The current concept of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) that has been adopted by many companies during the last decade—is no longer accurate, precise or actionable. This new metric called the Word of Mouth Index (WoMI) has been tested on hundreds of companies and with over 1.5 million consumers over the last two years. Author Larry Freed details the improvement that WoMI provides within what he calls the Measurement Ecosystem. He then goes on to look at three other drivers of customer satisfaction along with word of mouth: customer acquisition, customer loyalty, and customer conversion.

This book focuses upon the role of the sales force in today's changing world and how to design a sales force for strategic advantage. It includes sections on how to assess the current sales force design and how to implement change and covers customer segmentation, market strategy, structuring and sizing, alignment, metrics and managing change.

The inside scoop on boosting sales through spot-on analytics Retailers collect a huge amount of data, but don't know what to do with it. Retail Analytics not only provides a broad understanding of retail, but also shows how to put accumulated data to optimal use. Each chapter covers a different focus of the retail environment, from retail basics and organization structures to common retail database designs. Packed with case studies and examples, this book insightfully reveals how you can begin using your business data as a strategic advantage. Helps retailers and analysts to use analytics to sell more merchandise Provides fact-based analytic strategies that can be replicated with the same success the author achieved on a global level Reveals how retailers can begin using their data as a strategic advantage Includes examples from many retail departments illustrating successful use of data and analytics Analytics is the wave of the future. Put your data to strategic use with the proven guidance found in Retail Analytics.