Too much or too little data.
- Charlie
- Dec 9, 2022
- 2 min read
Do you have enough data to make the decision or recommendation about a product or range? I would suggest yes you do without even knowing what data, information and insight you have access to.
Depending upon the size of the category and the business, there will be variations on what you have access to and what your business is investing in. Epos, panel, usage, missions, bespoke research, loyalty data, price tracking services and more are all available.
Overwhelmed with data
I have seen category managers become overwhelmed with multiple sources of data, insight and research. They’ve not been able to see the woods from the trees, not knowing where to start and focus their attention.
At times data and insight is being purchased and not utilised to its full potential. If you have a data service provided to you at a cost you need resource to invest time in mining it, sharing the learnings, and the insights.
Limited data
If you have small amounts of data and insight available to you don’t under estimate the value of that as you’ll know it inside out, be able to recall prices and rates of sale from the top of your head. You’ll probably also be able to monitor things better as you’re closer to what’s going on.
I once had to monitor the prices of the pork market. We didn’t buy any data for this so I had to go into stores and record it all. There wasn’t much of a reliable online presence of retailers at this point either. I got to the point where I knew all the cuts of meat and all the prices because every month I needed to look at it all. This has value in decision making in a business, being that close to the whole market.
Making recommendations
If you need to make a straight forward recommendation about an action to take, would it actually change through having more data and insight available to you? Just looking at the basics like sales data, store audits, planograms and talking to your customers would it make much difference?
Ultimately as long as the methodology is sound and well thought through is the recommendation likely to change?
Deeper insight and understanding is important for bigger decisions, new usage occasions, new to market propositions and big fixture changes. When you’ve making big changes to a category investing to understand that it’s the right thing to is key when significant investment will go into making the changes in the retailer.
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