Retaining loyal customers, generating turnover and responding to global competition are becoming increasingly challenging.  And the current economic climate doesn’t help as financial pillars appear to shake and stumble, draining confidence amongst businesses of all kinds. 

In times like these, it is crucial to remain focused.  Forecasts are a useful foundation for setting goals and KPIs based on predicted future sales and production, and adjustments to both production and marketing can be made in reviewing forecast figures and actual results.

Forecasts are nevertheless tricky to create as it is difficult to obtain reliable data and it is often impossible to predict the future beyond the short to medium terms.  Furthermore, the data gathered can be biased, out of date or flawed.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the collaboration of company departments – chiefly the sales, production and marketing departments – in creating forecasts, and suggests seven rules companies can follow to make the most of collaboration in their forecasting efforts.  These can be summarized as follows:

1.  Involve senior executives.  Senior executives need to be on board, not only to achieve buy-in to the forecast, but also to approve and action spend on forecasting technologies that enhance the collection and sharing of data.  The author suggests:
   One way to get the attention of key executives is to calculate what a one-percentage-point improvement in forecast accuracy may mean to the company.  As supplies come closer to demand, customers can buy more, stores return less, and more revenue goes straight to the bottom line instead of paying for excess storage and handling.  For a large company, it could add millions of dollars to the bottom line.
2. Explain the mutual benefits.  Forecasting needs to benefit all those involved in the data sharing process.  The authors argue that whilst salespeople may want to focus on selling and not forecasting, the salespeople would however become interested if they believed that a more efficient supply chain would help make the product available according to customers’ requirements, thereby increasing sales commissions.
3. Clearly define goals and agreements.  Setting clear goals and metrics are paramount to increasing efficiency, especially of supply chains, such as reducing the number of days of inventory on hand.  The authors cite Procter & Gamble as an example: the company uses a scorecard that looks at on-time deliveries and the number of times a store runs out of a product, amongst other things.  The goals should constantly be reviewed to eliminate unrealistic expectations between departments and to determine whether goals are met, thereby enabling the most effective changes to be implemented and improvements made.
4. Use the best technology.  A central database is required to enable different parties to share data, such as sales, inventory and purchasing data (historical and current).  The best technologies should be used to capture, store and share this data.
5. Focus where revenue and profits are greatest.  Since resources are limited, companies should focus forecasts on products that yield more revenue and profits.  A deviation from this could result in staff devoting more time to less important and lower value products, rendering the forecasting a wasteful exercise.
6. Link incentives to companywide goals.  Incentives and rewards should be based on achievements of the company as a whole, as opposed to those of particular departments.  This enables effective and reliable forecasting, as opposed to deliberately low forecasting that is set too low with the aim of bettering predictions and therefore making a certain team look deceptively good.
7. Aim for continuous improvement.  It is crucial to continuously check the data to eliminate any errors that could contaminate the forecast, such as prejudiced assumptions or incorrect benchmarks.

Finally, we would like to add a further tip to successful forecasting.  The seven tips above are based on an inside-out approach, i.e. the view from within the company.  It would be beneficial to test forecasts from an objective standpoint, involving market and competitive intelligence.  For example, market research could be used to create comparable datasets (such as competitor forecasts or market forecasts as a whole), and this can be achieved through desk research, statistical extrapolation, and a select number of interviews with industry experts (such as large customers, trade associations, competitors and distributors). 

B2B International USA’s Business Development & Research Manager Julia Cupman says:

For more information on forecasting and how market research can add value, including different types of forecasts, the role of forecasts and forecasting methods, please take a look at our white paper: Forecasting and Scenario Planning.

Google have recently announced that they arrive to radically change the way their search engine works. The new ‘Google Universal Results’ will merge their standard search results with results from Google images, and Google videos. So how much of an impact will this have on businesses? Cast your eyes over the article below from the B2B Marketing Development Blog

Something New: Developing Digital Content for B2B

Reading up on the different changes going on in the SEO world, I found that Google was integrating a wide range of content into their Search Results. They are calling this Universal Results. The results that are returned under the main Google Search Bar are webpages, videos, photos, news stories and other forms of digital content all pertaining to the key phrases typed into the search box.

We had an earlier post titled Improved Search Engine Placement: It’s not just about YOU! You can read the post if you are interested, but to summarize a point real quick from it: It states that your placement in Google or the Search Engine Results isn’t always as important as those webpages that are placed around you. And driving traffic to your webpage for conversions. This post was written a couple months back. Google’s thought process about Universal Search supports our claim. To support the changes and implementation of Universal Search, Google states that its results today aren’t just about rankings and positioning. It is about getting coverage, covering ground or having real estate. It is about messaging and it is about branding. What are your goals of your SEO Program? Is it #1 rankings or driving traffic to your website?

What does Universal Results have to do with B2B? This is the industries’ chance to do something creative, design something unique, start a blog or post a video. There are different ways to capture your audiences’ attention and drive them to your website or to pick up a telephone and we need to explore those areas and branch out. Our digital content will be found with Universal Search. I’ve seen the changes in my search results already. And personally, I like it, because now I don’t have to use the video search engine to find a related video to my topic. The most relevant result was already posted.

Take a moment, look at your website, what can be added to support your site? Would a blog about your industry help? Would creating a YouTube account for the different videos your company puts out be worth the time investment? How are you going to change with the audience of the Internet? As technology advances and new ideas develop it is only going to grow. First step, get your website up and running with the room to create new supporting pages, for the digital content you are putting out on the web.

Remember, it’s all about the Real Estate!

From www.research-live.com

The British Library is offering free advice on market research for small businesses, through a series of workshops at its business and intellectual property centre.

The Knowing Your Market workshops, sponsored by Yellow Pages, will show how small business owners can use the library’s freely available resources, and other resources on the internet, to conduct effective desk research.

Isabel Oswell, head of business marketing at the British Library, said: “Many entrepreneurs fall at the first hurdle because they haven’t carried out any basic market research… This workshop [aims] to equip people with the skills and confidence to identify and access vital published information on customers, competitors and trends.�

The workshops will be held regularly throughout the second half of the year.

For more information on desk research, click the following link to view our white paper on how to get information for next to nothing.

As researchers we need to keep up to date with the best tools for desk research. Today desk research mainly means internet searching. And internet searching mainly means Google. Or does it? Google certainly is a favoured search tool and we all use it. However, there are new search tools that are available that may be more appropriate for the type of questions we are asking, the information we are looking for or the markets that we are working in. It is our job to stay in close touch with these. We reproduce for you an article by Paul Taylor that was published in the Financial Times last week and which offers us an excellent analysis of the latest tools.

New tools to vie with Google

By Paul Taylor

Financial Times: March 29 2007

Like many web users, I rely heavily on Google’s keyword-based search tools. The Google toolbar is installed in my browser, a customised Google web page is set as my default home page and I often begin research projects with a Google search.

Google has become embedded in users’ web behaviour, but in some areas, such as desktop search, the company has arguably been outflanked. Its desktop search tool, for instance, is good, but I pre­fer Yahoo’s (desktop.yahoo.com).

Also, in my own ad hoc tests, another search technology company, Ask.com (www.ask.com), often provides better, more relevant results to basic queries framed as questions.

Ask.com uses a proprietary subject-specific popularity ranking technology, called Ex­pertRank. It goes beyond ranking pages based on the volume of links pointing to them and determines popularity among clusters of pages based on the views of “experts� on a search topic. This enables Ask.com to deliver consistently relevant results. Ask.com is also my favourite for searching blogs and RSS news feeds.

I have also been taking a closer look at search technology start-ups, some of whose products are still in “beta� or test mode, and others that are still in development.

Many of these use natural language or semantic search techniques in an effort to deliver more meaningful results to ordinary questions such as “Who was the first man on the moon?� or “What is crackberry?�

Others are trying a new direction by focusing on specialist vertical markets, or combining search technology with other technologies.

Most established search engines rely heavily on indexing web pages based on keywords. The results are variable. Keyword-based search tools in particular generally do not cope well with ordinary questions – which is where the start-ups believe they have an edge.

Among those pushing the limits of natural language processing is Powerset (www.powerset.com). This Silicon Valley-based start-up aims to use the structure and nuances of natural language to develop a search engine that “breaks the confines of keyword search�.

Powerset’s search engine has yet to launch, so we’ll have to wait and see, but some start-ups already have trial services or are about to launch them. They include AskMeNow (www.askmenow.com), Hakia (www.hakia.com) and TextDigger’s Digger (www.digger.com).

AskMeNow already has a US-based mobile phone search service that uses natural language semantic search technology. Mobile phone subscribers text a question to “ASKME� and wait a few seconds for the answer. Alternatively, users on some networks can download a small software package to most mobile phones and pay a monthly $5 (£2.50) fee for unlimited access.

AskMeNow is poised to launch a web-based service using the same technology, which will mean users can ask natural language questions and get accurate and relevant results.

Hakia, fund­ed by a consortium of European venture capital companies, is running a trial service and is due to launch commercially this year – one of the first of many expected “semantic web� companies.

Hakia claims that it “understands� questions and performs “meaning-based ­searches�. I found it produced good and often extremely comprehensive results to relatively complex questions, although not always better than Google. It provides search examples, but to get a feel for it you need to use it for a while.

It may not replace Google, but Hakia could appeal to those re­searching knowledge intensive subjects such as medicine, law, finance, science and literature.

TextDigger takes a different approach but also delivers impressive results. Currently, Digger is a private beta service so you need a log-on and password to test it, but you can request an invitation to use the service via the website.

Like other semantic-based tools, TextDigger lets users ask ordinary questions, which it interprets to produce results based on its understanding. It tells you how it is treating the words and allows you to tweak the results and correct misunderstandings. I found this generally yielded the right ans­wer to basic questions, though it slows down the search.

Some search services are focusing on market segments. For example, if you are looking for a particular video clip, Blinkx (www.blinkx.com) delivers unrivalled results. Blinkx has already indexed more than 7m hours of audio, video, viral and television content.

Another start-up, Retrivo (www.retrivo.com), aims to make it easier for users to research, install, use and fix consumer electronics products.

Kosmix (www.kosmix.com) helps con­duct deep searches in categories such as health, travel, finance and US politics.

Like next generation semantic search services, these specialised search engine tools prove that, while Google may be the king of search, there is still room for innovative start-ups and niche search companies.

Short cut to the cheapest deals

Anyone looking for the best price for a laptop computer, camera or book can use a slew of specialist comparison shopping tools, or “shopping bots�.

These specialised search services have an estimated 60m users a month and include Pricegrabber, Shopzilla and Shopping.com. Most provide comparison guides for different geographic markets including the US, UK and other European countries.

Generally, shopping bots help users search quickly for goods across a wide variety of sites and can be useful for researching products and finding the best deal. However, most services also include “pay for placement� retailers at the top of the results lists, so you usually need to reorder results by price.

Most also include user ratings and shop ratings that help users to avoid dodgy stores.

Shopzilla, formerly Bizrate, was one of the first to include user ratings and feedback. It also has services tailored to the US, UK, French, German and Australian markets and draws results from a large number of stores.

Shopping.com (previously Dealtime) also offers international sites and includes extensive product details, making it a good research tool as well as a buying guide. But typically the first results are from “featured merchants� so, again, you should re-sort by price.

My own favourite is Pricegrabber (www.pricegrabber.co.uk). Pricegrabber’s innovations include bottom-line price calculations that take account of tax and shipping, making direct comparisons between stores much easier. Pricegrabber also supplies lots of product information and user feedback on merchants. Once again, however, you need to reorder results by price.

Worth watching

Two of the most promising services up and running are:

■Hakia – “Understands� questions and performs “meaning-based searches�. Especially suitable for researching knowledge- intensive subjects, such as medicine or law.

■TextDigger – Interprets questions, yielding results based on its understanding of the words. Tells users how it is making the interpretation and allows corrections to misunderstandings.

For more information on this topic, visit our post from last year entitled “Sniffing out the right information“