Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby founded the eponymous company which bears their conjoined surnames at the end of the 1980's. dunnhumby is one of the world's most respected data analytics organisations, especially in the Retail market, and today creates deep insight into valuable business trends for customers across the globe. I have been fortunate to work with colleagues from the business as our two worlds intersect time and again.
With more and more bad news from the sector emerging almost every day, I set to thinking precisely how this stuff we call insight is understood: my own articles are invariably crammed to the gunnels with advice for the Retail and Hospitality industry about the value of data analysis and moreover, the business value of understanding how trends in, for example, customer behaviour, impact operational Retail outcomes (such as margin improvement, increased sales, etc.). But illustrating such points is made simpler with the work of companies such as dunnhumby which, in its own words, sets out to "democratise Customer Data Science" in an attempt to help businesses within the vertical compete more strongly in today's data-driven world.
One solution with which I have been particularly taken is what the company terms dunnhumby Beyond. Harnessing mobile innovation to garner information, the solution "enables brands and retailers across the UK to make the toughest decisions by providing joined-up insights using the power of data". In reality, the power of this capability is demonstrated in the public-domain releases of true insight that data science delivers - Sales Director David Halls of dunnhumby Beyond regularly publishes tantalising overviews of the genuine insight gleaned from the acquisition of such data, for example this fascinating synopsis of the impact and effectiveness of the UK Government's 'Eat Out To Help Out' scheme. Analysis of the data is able to create statistical, empirical numerical evidence of customer behaviour in a timely manner, enabling Retail and Hospitality businesses participating in the scheme to react to real-world actions - not instinctive 'hunches' or gut-feelings.
Loyalty, promotional personalisation and customer retention are, perhaps, the hottest of themes as Retail reopens and battles for survival post-COVID. For all the words written about Digital Transformation in the sector, the reality for most businesses comes down to harnessing the myriad data sources they already have and the mountains of data they generate to better understand how to serve their customers in a drastically changed sector which continues to evolve at seemingly light speed. This is why insight is so important: without it, old habits will prevail in a new world, proving ineffective and insufficient against competitors which embrace news ways of digital working.
When dunnhumby first ran trials for Tesco into what became the Retailer's Loyalty ClubCard in 1994, Chairman at the time, Lord MacLaurin, is said to have proclaimed:
"What scares me about this is that you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years".
Data Science and Analytics have the proven capacity to transform Retail and Hospitality - make sure you have the insight into insight.
Through loyalty data, retailers have a long term view of customer behaviour and preferences. With the right data science applied on the right data in the right places, the shopping journey can be fully personalised.
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