Feb 6, 2017
Who is Mike?
Mike is an experienced customer and data analytics professional with 15+ years’ experience of developing customer focused solutions for retail, CPG, financial services, and airlines. He most recently led Aimia’s engagement with 11Ants Analytics (a Joint Venture with Air New Zealand) with responsibility for the Retail and Airline work streams. Prior to this, he ran Aimia’s Intelligent Shopper Solution (ISS) business in Australia overseeing teams supporting Customer Targeted Marketing, Analytics, and Consultancy with Coles.
Before moving to Australia, Mike worked for Dunnhumby on the Tesco Ireland, UK, and CPG accounts before joining Aimia for the launch of the ISS business with Sainsbury’s to oversee the Central Insight relationship with the retailer. With a background in Mathematics and Statistics and technical data analytics roles, Mike has a vast knowledge of analysis techniques and tools alongside a proven ability to embed these within a client’s business.
How did you find yourself working in Data Analytics?
I graduated with a degree in Maths and Statistics so working in data was, I suppose, an obvious transition. The world of data within the industry was, however, far less established than now so even though the transition seems a natural one I still rather fell into it. I had a strong interest in marketing so was actually looking to break into that field via graduate schemes or similar role.
Amongst this I happened upon an advert for a marketing analyst role that seemed the perfect fit; my numeric background would enable me to be embedded within a marketing department where I could advance my knowledge of this discipline. At that stage, the aim was to use the maths element as a means to an end to ultimately transition to a more traditional marketing role in time. Little did I know that I would, in fact, become far more passionate about the use of data and instead form my career around this instead.
Who has been the biggest inspiration (mentor) in your career and why (within data)?
If my initial role as a marketing analyst gave me a glimpse of the career options that could exist within data analytics, my next role cemented my passion for the area and in fact focussed me more closely to a specific stream of data as a whole – that of customer data. Clive Humby and Edwina Dunn were the husband and wife team that set up dunnhumby, the revolutionary loyalty data company that worked with Tesco to drive unprecedented success in the U.K. retail market by using customer data to understand and organise their business around the needs of the consumers.
Clive Humby was, and remains, evangelical about the importance of customer data and how it can be used to drive business. His views on how customer data can, and should, be used to make businesses customer centric had a profound effect on my outlook. In addition, his background as an analyst showed me I did not need to transition away from data to a more ‘traditional’ business area to progress in my career.
What personal development do you do to keep yourself sharp?
Having focused on my career mainly on loyalty organisations, customer data and retail organisations I take a keen interest in all these areas. I am a voracious consumer of news and ensure I stay up to speed through this along with specific publications on the above areas. As I have taken on management and leadership roles I have also developed a keen interest in how these manifest themselves in other areas and how this can be applied – what can we learn from traditional bastions of leadership such as politics or sport for example. I am also a big believer that to truly stay sharp in your work life over a long period you can’t live it 24/7 and so creating a clear barrier to allow enjoyment of other facets of life – be that food, travel or film – is vital.
Do you find that organisations are changing in the way that they view data and how it can be used for strategy?
Over the course of my career data analytics, particularly new and different types of data, has clearly become more prevalent across every industry. Almost all businesses now have some understanding that using data correctly can positively impact their KPI’s. As such, there has been a push to ensure any strategy has been informed by ‘data’. However, this awareness of ‘data’ at the highest levels in companies, combined with the technology constraints to obtain, house and access data being removed, has resulted in potentially as many problems as solutions.
Using the right data for the right questions is just as important as having access to the data. Therefore while data has certainly gained greater awareness and acceptance within the business, and organisations have largely addressed the, mostly technical, problems to its use, many have not invested in the resources and expertise to correctly use the data. This combined with a tendency to try to ‘run before they can walk’ is showing signs of undermining the use of data.
I still very much believe that the right data, used in the right way, should be central to the strategy and decision making of every company. However, if the wrong data is used or the wrong question asked we risk data as a whole being undermined. We are already seeing signs of this in the ‘post-truth’ views seen throughout western politics in 2016. Ensuring the availability of greater amounts of data doesn’t herald a backlash against its use and importance is a key challenge facing those within the industry.
What can be done to ensure Australia is a market leader in data analytics?
As discussed above I believe using the huge volumes of data now available correctly is a key challenge for the industry and one that Australia could seek to exploit as a leader. The current trend is a focus on technology, machine learning etc. This is, of course, important but I believe it unlikely Australia will differentiate itself or become a global leader in these spaces given powerhouses such as Google and Amazon are already so far advanced. Similarly, a focus on technical resources is limited due to populations size – competing with India, for example, is not feasible. Instead, I believe a gap exists for Australia to focus on the creation of more rounded analytics professionals. Understanding the business realities alongside the technical options allows data to most likely be used in the right way. A workforce that produces these skills in abundance will mark Australia out as the go to for data professionals to bridge the gap between the business and the technical.
How do you see the technology in data analytics progressing over the next 5 to 10 years?
A key change that will impact the areas of data I have spent many years working in will be in how organisations capture customer data. The historic model of using loyalty cards, or similar, to identify customers will likely be superseded in coming years. With the ubiquity of smartphones and the emergence of mobile wallets, to name but two options, retailers will have many ways to identify customers. Add to this a continued increase in the importance of e-commerce, data will enable a far more tailored experience for customers interactions and shopping out with traditional bricks and mortar stores. This offers huge positives for the customer in personalisation of online layout, ease of shop etc. However, retailers must also be careful not to alienate customers through their use of what these technology changes allow – the most obvious example of this being differential pricing. This practice is already seen in certain industries, such as airline, and while it offers huge short term upside to the retailer it is a risky proposition as the willingness for customers to accept these practices is as yet untested.
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