A new survey conducted by Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) and sponsored by Cognizant explores how consumer goods companies are approaching data management strategies and usage.

1. 28 cgt | may 2013 | consumergoods.com
custom research
All we seem to hear about these days is Big
Data, but is it more hype than reality? Com-
panies in the consumer goods (CG) industry
have been leveraging data and insights for
years, but the journey has not been easy for
many. It has taken a tremendous amount of
effort to get the right data to the right users
intheappropriateformatforittoreallymake
a difference.
This month, CGT once again partnered
with Cognizant to take a look at how compa-
niesareapproachingdatamanagementstrat-
egies in order to understand how the data is
actually being used. Last year, we found that
analytics capabilities didn’t exactly match
up with the perceived importance in specific
areas, and unfortunately, the survey results
this year are not much more optimistic.
Despite the importance of analytics capa-
bilities, data and insights are still not being
leveraged to make better decisions by end
users. Our survey of CG executives revealed
that only 4 percent of respondents have a re-
porting and analytical environment that al-
lows them to access relevant information in a
user-friendlyandtimelymanner(seeFigure1).
That means that an overwhelming major-
ity of users from CG companies of all sizes
are struggling to leverage important data: 28
percent need to rework the data to get it into
a usable form, another 28 percent create their
owndatapulls,andalmostone-quarterreport
that there are too many systems and that this
adds to the confusion.
Even worse, for all but the largest CG
companies surveyed, user confidence in the
data from the reporting and analytical sys-
tems environments is weak (see Figure 2). At
48percent,almosthalfofsurveyrespondents
claim the confidence level is moderate to
low, reporting that business users only use
it for routine decisions but prefer to use data
from other sources or do their own addi-
tional analysis for making critical decisions.
More than one-third rate their organization’s
confidence level as moderate to high, where
business users take the information but get it
validated before using it for important deci-
sions. Remarkably, this number jumps from
36 percent overall to 67 percent for CG com-
panies with more than $10 billion in annual
revenue, suggesting better usage by larger
organizations.
There doesn’t seem to be one overriding
factorthatispreventingcompaniesfrombet-
ter leveraging data for sales and marketing
insights in particular. Rather, respondents
cite several barriers with only an eight-point
difference, starting with data quality at 23
percent, data availability and user adoption
of tools at 19 percent each, and data mining
to derive insights and insight delivery to us-
ers at 15 percent. Data timeliness was less of
Analytics and Insights
Disappointing User Confidence Persists for Consumer Goods companies
expert perspective • by Neva Flaherty, Consumer Goods Consulting Manager, Cognizant
Data Strategy: The Fuel for Better Business Decisions
Think data strategy is not a worthy
priority? Consider this: 90 percent
of the world’s data was created
in the past two years, including
2.7 billion “likes” on Facebook
each day1
. To stay current with
consumer sentiment for product
development and relevant mes-
saging and promotions, CG firms
must manage and utilize data
across the enterprise to enable
improved decision-making: faster,
better and tightly aligned to strat-
egy. In our work, there are three
key success factors for building a
robust data strategy:
Business decisions drives data
strategy: Data strategy work can-
not succeed without 50/50 part-
nership from business partners
to articulate what insights drive
decisions and execution of strat-
egy. The link to strategy is critical
to “dimensionalizing” the value
potential of adding additional data
sets and analytic capability and,
ultimately, project ROI.
Formalized data policies and
processes: Define and document
available data sets and business
decisions they support. Articulate
which groups fund data acquisi-
tion, own data management and
integration, as well which groups
own analysis and delivery of in-
sights. Define data quality stan-
dards and audit procedures. Pub-
lish policies for data collaboration
among business units, functions,
customer teams, and with suppli-
ers and retail customers.
Proactive organizational change
initiative: An analytics capabil-
ity requires skillsets that are not
readily available in CG companies
such as deep modeling skills or
using new combinations of data
for predictive analytics. A cross-
functional “Analytics Center of
Excellence” often provides the
best organizational model to pro-
vide the highest level of sophisti-
cated analytics services to busi-
ness units while minimizing the
breadth of change required.
1
Edgell Knowledge Network,
“Big Data in Consumer Goods –
September 2012”

2. consumergoods.com | may 2013 | cgt 29
a factor at 8 percent, perhaps influenced by
the many retailers who are sharing timely
point-of-sale data.
There does, however, seem to be prog-
ress with some capabilities that depend
on data and insights to improve sales and
marketing performance (see Figure 3). Shop-
per insights, which is also rated the most
important capability, leads the list of ac-
complishments, followed closely by assort-
ment planning. Digital marketing return on
investment analysis is the furthest behind
in maturity, with social listening and price
optimization also lagging in adoption.
Thisresearchalsoaskedaboutownership,
enablement and use of data by job function,
revealing that business users overall are pri-
mary users of data insights, while IT is an
enabler and dedicated groups or centers of
excellence often own the insights.
Consumer or shopper insights are the
basis for collaborative planning between
retailer and vendor for more than half of
survey participants, enabling the collabo-
ration capability that 54 percent deemed
mission critical.
For more details, visit consumergoods.
com/research to download the full re-
search report.
by kara romanow
“Only 4 percent of respon-
dents have a reporting and
analytical environment that
allows them to access rel-
evant information in a user
friendly and timely manner.”
figure 3
Relative Maturity of Business Capabilities
(Respondents used a 5 point scale where 1 = no capability, 3 = some customers,
good progress, 5 = how we do business)
Capability 1 2 3 4 5
Shopper Insights 12% 12% 38% 23% 15%
Assortment Planning 23% 12% 31% 19% 15%
Price Optimization 15% 38% 12% 27% 8%
Social Listening/Web Sentiment 19% 35% 27% 19% 0%
Digital Marketing ROI Analysis 24% 48% 20% 8% 0%
figure 2
Business User Confidence Rating in Reporting/Analytical Data
28%
28%
24%
4%
16%
I need to rework information to get it into a usable form.
I create my own data pulls from the source data.
There are too many systems and it adds to the confusion.
Environment enables our enterprise to access all
relevant info in a user-friendly and timely manner.
Not Applicable/Can’t Say
CAPABILITY
figure 1
Ability to Leverage Data to Make Business Decisions
36%0%
Very High Moderate to High
48%
Moderate to Low
12%
Very Low
4%
Not Applicable/
Can’t Say
36%0%
Very High Moderate to High
48%
Moderate to Low
12%
Very Low
4%
Not Applicable/
Can’t Say