Beyond Analysis

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of customer insights at A.P. Moller-Maersk, a major shipping company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyond Analysis?

When I arrived at the organization, I inherited a customer segmentation. I was really keen to get my head around the segmentation, so I brought in Beyond Analysis. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Beyond Analysis came in to review the methodology and how it was being used, and give an initial view of a roadmap for improvement. I specifically wanted some feedback in terms of the robustness and effectiveness of how we were applying the segmentation.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked primarily with two people from Beyond Analysis.

How did you come to work with Beyond Analysis?

I’ve known Will (Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer) for years. We have incredibly overlapped interests in terms of the importance of the customer, and customer data. However, we’d never had occasion to work together until this project. I’d always been impressed by the work Beyond Analysis had been able to do for their clients, so I decided to give them a call.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together for about a month and a half, since about May 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

My main success metric was whether or not they’d be able to deliver a clear roadmap going forward, which they have. When I first inherited the segmentation, there was quite a bit of confusion surrounding how it was being used and how effective it was. Thanks to Beyond Analysis, I’m much more confident and comfortable with it. They’ve provided us with a real clarity of thinking we’d been struggling to arrive at.

How did Beyond Analysis perform from a project management standpoint?

Since this has all taken place during COVID-19, we were all working remotely throughout the project. Beyond Analysis was able to spin up very rapidly and coordinate their own involvement. The distance wasn’t a barrier. I also haven’t felt like I’m being forced into a system; the experience feels personalized and tailored to me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been most impressed with their rapid mobilization and quick turnaround. It was fantastic. We’re asking them for follow-up work, which is a pretty good endorsement.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing that comes to mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chief Customer Officer for consumer engagement and loyalty programme across 18m customers. Multi-sector consumer products and services business with interests in financial services, aviation, tourism, music and entertainment.

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyond Analysis?

We engaged with Beyond Analysis to use a third party global bank in the analyse our customer base in the UK (our primary market) to understand cross-business product holdings, frequency of spend and profiling of these consumers to understand their behaviours and brand synergies.

What were your goals for this project?

Our key objectives to understand what messages and brands to align with to attract new customers in certain segments and retain those already with us. A byproduct of the study also identified low-hanging fruit where look-a-like customers available for cross-sell opportunities.

How did you select this vendor?

I have used this vendor extensively in the last 10 years, whilst working across 3 retails banks based in London. For each of the previous projects, a comprehensive procurement process and vendor competition consistently rated Beyond Analysis' capabilities over-and-above the next industry-player tendering.

Describe the project in detail.

Analysing the UK consumer based on behaviours, to which my team could the apply consumer psychology tools to define the attitudes and values of our base shaping the way we talk to our customers, about what, when and over what channels.

What was the team composition?

Data scientists from both Beyond's partner bank and their own in-house teams in Europe, coupled wit

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Within the defined timelines of the project engagement we had a science- and data-based set of actions to allow us to shape our business model and approach, the science-led data is compelling when it comes to engaging new partners.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Paul A. is, quite simply, brilliant! His ability to understand business drivers for his clients quickly is incredibly powerful for fine-tuning the brief to in-turn bring the best results of actionable insight.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They took the time to understand the business we're in, see what we need to achieve, and deliver actionable insights that would help our business to grow.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Quality of output and delivery in a timely manner, and the team delivered that!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the director of strategy for the UK at Fleetcor, a financial services firm.

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyond Analysis?

We hired Beyond Analysis to produce separate proofs of concept relating to different segments of data we hold as a business. These included attrition, reporting, and data commercialization.

What were your goals for this project?

We know that we hold a lot of robust data which can help drive cost efficiency and revenue opportunities for our business. However, we lack the ability in our company to use this data in a meaningful way. We hoped Beyond Analysis could show us the power of our data through POCs to secure further investment in data.

How did you select this vendor?

We heard presentations from three companies, and we selected Beyond Analysis after scoring each of the firms.

Describe the project in detail.

We relied on Beyond Analysis to develop a model that can, among other things, accurately predict when a customer is likely to leave our business. Their co-founder interviewed our primary stakeholders to get a deeper understanding of our operations. We had weekly meetings to discuss our progress and align our priorities.

What was the team composition?

Their co-founder served as our main point of contact. We also interacted with a technical lead.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Beyond Analysis successfully produced a random forest model that can identify likely customer actions with greater accuracy than our current model. We are testing their model against our current iteration to prove this notion in a live environment.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We maintained a productive working environment. Beyond Analysis supported ad hoc requests and was able to meet with our wider team in person or via teleconference.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are a relatively small consultancy, but they feel larger because of their resources and skill set.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, Beyond Analysis has met all of our specifications. We operated in a fairly unstructured format, and that may not work for other clients. Given the nature of this work, it suited us well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the business intelligence manager and customer data center analytics manager at a travel commerce platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyond Analysis?

We wanted to make use of our data and build better engagements with our customers. Specifically, we wanted data-driven insight to help us engage with our customers in a new way.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The partnership comprises two main projects. First, Beyond Analysis built a product that enabled our customers to self-serve data. We then used that information to understand travel agents’ needs. Next, the team built an interactive platform for those travel agent clients. The solution lets travel agencies measure themselves against peers in a wider market.

The second project has emphasized driving personalization through the travel industry. We’ve created clusters and persona groups that we can then marry up with intent-based data assets including Google’s marketing platform. We use this information to help our clients make smart marketing decisions.

What is the team composition?

The team includes senior data scientists, analysts, a project manager, and senior consultants that run the discovery sessions with clients.

How did you come to work with Beyond Analysis?

Our team wanted to hit the ground running and provide a credible solution to clients. We searched for a partner that could tangibly demonstrate success with machine learning algorithms and AI technology in past projects. We did some research and Beyond Analysis walked us through their portfolio. Their experience was compelling.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 and the partnership is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They spun the platform within three months, having consumed billions of records. That was something we hadn’t been able to do internally. As a result, all of our KPIs are positive. Our customers have gained market share while reducing their customer acquisition costs.

How did Beyond Analysis perform from a project management standpoint?

The partnership is still in its early stages and we haven’t had any issues. During the last three years, we’ve had loose requirements and timelines. But Beyond Analysis has quick turnarounds; they provide insightful analysis to our customers in a timely manner. They use Jira internally and Slack to communicate with us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They work together to get the job done. Beyond Analysis feels more like an extension of our workforce than a consultancy we pay. Whenever there’s a problem, the team meets or exceeds those challenges. We’re now able to provide enhanced offerings and capabilities, which enables us to work smarter and monetize great solutions through different means.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat them as a partner and be transparent. They have great assets in their data science, account management, and analytic capabilities.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Travelport is a technology company listed on the NYSE. Its travel commerce platform offers distribution, technology, and payment solutions for the travel and tourism industry. I was head of data products.

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyond Analysis?

We hired Beyond Analysis to build a travel market with an insights tool that would help our customers gain traction in a challenging market. We had 600 billion rows of data, so the challenges were enormous.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was twofold: grow our client base and sign 100 online agencies to our platform.

How did you select this vendor?

We considered a variety of companies, but Beyond Analysis was the obvious choice. We appreciated their extensive data science experience and their ability to address all our requirements within the product lifecycle.

Describe the project in detail.

We provided the product requirements, and they handled delivery. They occasionally accompanied us to client meetings, helping to translate their needs into features. Beyond Analysis also helped with UI/UX design.

What was the team composition?

Between five and 10 people from Beyond Analysis worked with us at different times.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Due to the immense value we provided, we signed five new customers and renewed the contracts of 12 others.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We used Jira to manage the workflow effectively and kept communication channels open at all times. Their response times were impressive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We appreciated their ability to understand our business needs and translate them into technical outcomes.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we were satisfied. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re the number one local tour operator to the UK leisure market. I’m head of trading systems, so I’m responsible for the reservation platform that handles all of our bookings, customers, and the web platform that sits on top of it.

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyond Analysis?

We wanted to improve our customer insights so we have a clearer indication of the effects of changes and new features on the UX. We had a tremendous amount of data but needed help using it to inform what we were doing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked with our customer and marketing director, as well as with our head of planning and analysis. They helped us create an NPS [net promoter score] model.

The work involved looking through the portfolio of enhancements, features, and developments that we wanted to bring in. They helped us pull together a model that measured those things. That included lot of data mining, data cleansing, and restructuring. They got the data into a state where we could draw from insights from it.

What is the team composition?

We received a lot of support from their senior team. William [CSO, Beyond Analysis] was very helpful in getting us organized and working out who and what type of resources, scale, and approaches were right for us. It was really easy to work with him.

We had a very talented insight person from their team, Giedrius [Head of Insight Solutions, Beyond Analysis]. In the later stages, we had one of his colleagues working with us too.

How did you come to work with Beyond Analysis?

One of my colleagues found them. We spoke to three to four different companies, but Beyond Analysis convinced us that they were the right choice.

How much have you invested with them?

£25,000–£100,000 [$34,950–$139,800 USD].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together 18–24 months ago and the project is completed.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They helped us reach a level of self-sufficiency, which was always the goal. I’d absolutely use them again. We’re actively using the NPS model in our portfolio of product and services to bring to our customers in the market. It’s very valuable.

How did Beyond Analysis perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very organized. There were no surprises, and they were flexible and adaptable. We work in a very agile way in the digital product development area, with full end-to-end continuous delivery. They really adapted to working with us in that space very well as they have an agile mindset.

Their communication is very good. They were very easy to deal with on the phone or in person, and we had in-person meetings. A couple of their team were implanted into ours and based on site. They integrated into our way of working very quickly. On the data side, there was some experimentation around some of the insight tools that were being used.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very good at quickly understanding our particular needs. I’ve worked with a lot of companies over the years, and that is where they stood out for me. They grasped what we needed quickly and helped us understand that need. They have some really talented people on their team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and honest about what your challenges are, or what your goals and aspirations are. Have a candid conversation about what it will take to achieve them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business engagement lead for a company that’s part of a global group focused on the supply and distribution of plumbing and heating materials. I work for the U.K. business in the IT department.

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyond Analysis?

I was leading analytics strategy for a piece of work we were undertaking and wanted more support.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The work was an overarching strategy piece that was varied and high-level. Beyond Analysis helped our business move from having lots of data that we couldn’t analyze well to data with immediate insights. We wanted to change from a traditional business intelligence model where people have to sift through a lot of data before finding what’s important. Beyond Analysis helped us cover patterns we previously couldn’t spot. They defined processes and technologies to better utilize our data.

What is the team composition?

We had one full-time resource and a senior manager who worked with us two days a week.

How did you come to work with Beyond Analysis?

A consultancy we work with recommended them. We did our due diligence and then invited them in. We went through a small tender and RFP process with various agencies, but in the end, we chose Beyond Analysis. They had the right experience and were willing to customize their approach to best fit our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between £100,000–£150,000 ($138,870–$208,305 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July–August 2017.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Unfortunately, a lack of funds limited our ability to implement Beyond Analysis’s suggestions. However, the reaction to their proposals was positive and started a lot of debate amongst our senior leaders.

How did Beyond Analysis perform from a project management standpoint?

They were hardworking and kept the deadlines. We worked with them and a wider team, but Beyond Analysis conducted everything. They were conscientious and professional, managing themselves and our stakeholders well. We were in the same building 4­–5 days a week, so we mainly communicated in person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They interacted with the people in our business extremely well, from senior leadership to data and reporting analysts. They worked with quite a range of people and everyone was impressed with them.

They’re a good end-to-end analytics partner. They can help you find a strategy through implementation and analysis.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we were impressed with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a wealth of experience and ideas, but they may suggest something that doesn’t work for your business or industry. You should recognize and challenge that. Point those kinds of things out, and they’ll work with you to solve them.