Loyalty Management UK, which operates the Nectar loyalty
card, is overhauling its approach to data analysis to improve the
quality of information it provides to the 13 retail sponsors of the
loyalty card programme.
The firm is using Enterprise Miner software from SAS to complement
its existing business intelligence systems to provide deeper
analysis of data.
"We have been using Business Objects and other tools for business
intelligence but the deeper statistical correlation analysis we are
looking to do is only possible with data mining," said Duncan
Stirling, client services director at Loyalty Management.
"The software will allow us to improve the speed and flexibility of
our segmentation process," he added.
The SAS software, which will link in to Loyalty Management's Oracle
8i databases, will also help the company to provide greater
insights into campaign selections, marketing opportunities and
performance measurements, Stirling said.
"From a sponsor point of view, this is a strategic tool to support
both the work we do as a hub of information, and to support the
marketing and customer relationship management programmes," he
said.
For Loyalty Management, which has a large number of business
partners, being able to segment data quickly is a key benefit, said
Andy Kellett, senior research analyst at Butler Group.
"It will be able to focus more deeply on which customers are
earning points with particular retailers, so they can target offers
in a more focused way, avoiding spam-type issues," he said.
Loyalty Management hopes to complete the implementation of the SAS
software within the next two months. The main IT challenge will be
ensuring that the underlying data is structured in a way that will
allow the best analysis, Stirling said.
Website updated
Loyalty Management UK has completely overhauled the Nectar website,
allowing cardholders to redeem loyalty points online and check what
offers their points can give them. The new website, which
soft-launched earlier this month, was developed in-house with
partners Infosys for IT infrastructure, Evolution for a real-time
redemption engine and Conchango for front-end design.
To prevent a repeat of problems with availability as experienced at
the original website launch, the site has been "stress tested to
the point of trying to break it", said chief operating officer
Simon Hawkes.