Where does success begin? When do we need to act to be successful? Why are we successful in some places but not in others that are apparently very similar?
Sun Tzu's iconic work, ‘The Art of War’, has rightly become one of the world's most influential books on military strategy. Written more than two thousand years ago in China, it is now studied in military academies around the globe.
It is undeniable that the need to know the enemy (‘competition’) - his plans, dispositions, strengths, and weaknesses - is as true today as it was in Sun Tzu's time. "Know your enemy and know yourself, and fight a hundred battles without danger," observed Sun Tzu. "Know yourself but not your enemy and you will win one battle but lose another".
Also, for Sun Tzu was very important to understand the terrain, with all its variations and possible uses, better than the enemy does. This is a difficult task, especially when fighting on foreign and unfamiliar soil, and even in enemy territory.
Besides while we often observed that the human terrain was the decisive terrain, the physical terrain and man-made objects often dictated how we and our partners on the ground could engage, secure, and serve the population.
Understanding competitors, knowledge and location seem to be key elements in order to secure victories in wars and in commercial world. Therefore, having the answers to the where, the when and the why is the basis for the success of your business. For this reason, it is important to incorporate into your management all the power, efficiency, and value that Advanced Analytics and Geomarketing provide: to help us understand and answer these three questions.
Incorporating Advanced Analytics Models such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Models into your management helps you to improve customer management and development at all stages of the Life Cycle, improve potential acquisition, and optimise the location of the best placements for the Expansion of your business. Models must include both the dynamism and richness of in-house transactional information and the variety and volume of accurate and up-to-date external information to improve predictive power and optimise decision making.
The second protagonist is Geomarketing, through platforms that make it possible to visualise, analyse, exploit, and execute the Analytical Models through different specific functionalities for Marketing and Expansion purposes, and whose backbone is a Data Lake of external information that is complemented with the company's own information. Thanks to Geomarketing Platforms, such as Experian's GeoMarketing Xpert®, Marketing Departments can understand the behaviour of their customers and adapt their Points of Sale. Also, Expansion Departments can locate new locations with greater buying potential by Retail Format in a much more efficient way.
If Sun Tzu had had the chance to learn about Geomarketing, he would certainly have recommended its application to the art of war. Location Intelligence to know Where, When and Why: The Road to Success.
Written by Lucas Suárez - Head of Marketing Intelligence and BPO. Experian Spain & Portugal