Cartesian Consulting

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former VP of CRM and analytics for Vail Resorts, an operator of ski resorts. They manage ski mountains, lodging properties, real estate, rentals, and other ski vacation components. I was responsible for marketing analytics, research, and pricing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cartesian Consulting?

We needed support for our heavy quantitative analysis. We had an internal analytics team, but we didn’t have any data scientists to develop predictive modeling. Since the initial engagement, we’ve also Cartesian Consulting for other modeling projects or when we’re short-staffed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first project Cartesian Consulting worked on was a likelihood-to-return predictive model. We gave them access to the data on guests who’d visited our resorts in the past five years, and they used their demographic, behavioral, and transactional details to develop their model. All of our data is consolidated on an enterprise data warehouse, and we gave them a daily feed so they could create their model, which was done in R.

After building the model, they did a final readout and presentation to walk us through their findings. The deck covered their methodology, results, and recommendations for how to use their findings. For every other project they’ve worked on, they do a final readout.

What is the team composition?

They provide a project manager in the U.S. and about four dedicated overseas developers for every project. They also bring on experts, depending on the project type. They were also a low-cost provider, so we hired them.

How did you come to work with Cartesian Consulting?

Their sales director reached out to us at a time when we were looking into doing a predictive modeling project. We explored a few other partners, but Cartesian Consulting had lots of experience with loyalty marketing and analytics and were committed to providing a U.S. contact.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $275,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in March 2017, and the work is ongoing.

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

Their model has given us the ability to target our destination guests with more effective marketing, increasing return rates. They’ve also given us more expectations of visitation patterns, which has improved forecasting accuracy across the entire business.

How did Cartesian Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

We have regular phone calls with our project manager and meet in person, when needed. We’re pleased with their organization and how they maintain daily contact. Because they provide a U.S. project manager, we don’t have to worry about time differences or overseas communication. They proactively recognize potential for new projects and understand the context of our assets and requests. One of the owners consistently checks in on projects and has even come to our office a few times. They hold workshops and web sessions to highlight their capabilities and tools, which creates a strong partnership.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have lots of different types of expertise, which we can bring into our projects whenever needed. They strive to connect to our business and understand how to turn data into practical and functional solutions. The relationship has been outstanding; they have excellent client management.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As their business grows, they need to maintain a strong U.S. presence.

Please describe your organization.

We are a specialty retail skin care company in India and the Middle East. We started 14 years ago in India. We have about 170 locations across India spanning all of our services and products.

What is your position?

I am the vice president of marketing and head of new business.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Cartesian Consulting?

My company really wants to manage consumer behavior. It's all about directing consumer behavior, increasing the frequency of the purchase value of each consumer. We started working with Cartesian Consulting on a CRM [customer relationship management] program about six or seven years ago. That CRM project gradually evolved into a customer loyalty effort. Our loyalty program is now a well-run and established dealer-based, point-based effort.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Cartesian helps us manage our customer loyalty program, CRM efforts, and overall data analytics work. They aid decision making based on discounts, promotions, spending, and so on.

How did you come to work with Cartesian Consulting?

There are various kinds of CRM and loyalty agencies. We ended up short-listing two of the bigger agencies in India. The reason for selecting Cartesian was their analytical ability and the quality of their people. Cartesian had deep expertise in launching some similar loyalty programs and provides high-quality resources in terms of analytics.

What is the status of this engagement?

I have been with the firm for three years, but we have been working with Cartesian for about six. We are still working with them.

Could you share any statistics, metrics, or other feedback from this engagement?

Our business model is very much dependent on identifying our most valuable consumers – high net worth individuals – and targeting them. We know one standard metric is retention of our customers. That is about 74 percent, which we consider very good for this industry.

How did Cartesian Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They are good at sticking to the budget. Cartesian Consulting is outstanding on analytics. I would say, as far as timeliness, they are good.

What distinguishes Cartesian Consulting from other providers?

They have a real understanding of loyalty and analytical strength. Very few in India have that ability of conceptualizing and driving a loyalty program and the related analytics.

Is there anything Cartesian Consulting could have improved or done differently?

Not really. They promised and they delivered. They are not meant to be a creative design agency. Sometimes, CRM and loyalty effort need some creative element, but that is provided by another agency. Cartesian does not do communication development.

We are Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, India's largest branded apparel retailer that owns, manufactures, and markets four of the largest menswear brands in the country – Louis Philippe, Van Heusen (under a perpetual licensing agreement with Phillips Van Heusen Corporation), Allen Solly, and Peter England. We are a $550 million enterprise with close to 2,000 retail stores across the country and more than 5 million customers visiting these stores annually. We also own three different retail formats called Planet Fashion (220 stores comprising all four of our brands), People (about 100 stores catering to the teenage/young adult casual segment), and The Collective (operating in the luxury segment – about 18 stores catering to the top end with more than 50 international brands). I am the Marketing Manager.

We brought Cartesian on board in 2012, after evaluating several partners for loyalty program analytics and building a strong pipeline of customer insights. Our loyalty programs, while separate for each brand, has about 4.5 million members in all.

The initial mandate was to consolidate the databases of all the programs at the back end and work toward developing a single view of customer across all of them. The mandate has evolved from this point on to the customer life cycle management that has helped us automate campaigns based on different types of consumer segments and behavior.

This engagement has now grown further, with Cartesian embedding a five-member team inside Madura to handle analytics emerging from consumer feedback gathered at our stores. We've initiated the Net Promoter System in Madura and the amount of consumer information on both demographics and preferences is staggering. We've so far collected more than a million feedback from customers (in about 15 months) through iPads placed in stores, and more than a 100,000 conversations through a dedicated call center set up for outreaches – through which consumers share their views, and suggestions for us. 

Cartesian, in collaboration with a team of business stewards, handles the analytics around this consumer feedback, which is presented back to the operating teams on a monthly basis. 

All through our engagement more than the last three and a half years, I've found Cartesian to be responsive, agile and pro-active. During the last two years, they've more than doubled their team size, which seems to reflect their ambition to grow and keeping with the demands of their clients – I know they've also added a number of new clients to their roster. Cartesian Consulting has been able to add a high degree of value to the loyalty program analytics, insights, and campaigns and have managed to drive a deeper level of conviction within the business teams, on how to extract greater economic value from sharper insights and actions.

Please describe your organization.

We are Domino's Indonesia.

What is your position and responsibilities?

I'm the CEO. I took the company over in July 2013. 

What business challenge were you trying to address with Cartesian Consulting?

I was looking for help with my new pricing strategy that I wanted to put in place and to come up with some recommendations for my menu rationalization. 

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We have them do all our work. They do everything from menu realization, pricing strategy, marketing recommendations, and marketing promotions. The next project they started is looking at my complete portfolio and providing recommendations on what is working, what is not working, and what some of the trends are that they are seeing in some of the stores.

They work on our monthly marketing campaigns, and they work on Domino's Indonesia three-year pricing strategy by giving offering advice for the business so I can make sound business decisions.

How did you come to work with Cartesian Consulting?

I saw some of the results they were getting with their CRM [customer relationship management] program and the way they were doing their business. I met with them and I was very impressed by what they were doing. A month later, Cartesian was working for me, and they have been ever since.

I started my search for key players to support me to turn the brand around in the country. Part of my search was to find a global consulting firm specializing in marketing analytics. On a visit to India in October 2013, I was introduced to Sandeep Mittal, the founder of Cartesian, who had worked with Domino's India for a number of years and came highly recommended by the Domino's India team.

Domino's India is the largest Domino's country outside of the United States and is currently growing at 150 to 200 stores a year. This year, they will cross the 1,000-store mark. That gave me a lot of confidence in their work and results.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It varies. For instance, they have done a couple of small, simple marketing recommendation projects for me, and they have done projects close to a few million dollars as well. Now, they are working on another project for me, which will be in the range of $10,000 to $15,000 for coming up with recommendations and portfolios for moving forward with some of the additions I want to make to the store. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We have them on a monthly retainer. They have normal activities that Cartesian's team delivers on a monthly basis. Beyond that, we also have them doing a variety of other projects as we see fit. 

What distinguishes Cartesian Consulting from other providers?

They are extremely intelligent, hard-working people. They correspond promptly with you, and they meet all their deadlines, even the real tight ones I tend to give them. They are also extremely humble about the way they do things. At the same time, however, they are aggressive, and are willing to challenge you on some of the decisions you want to make.

I actually like when a vendor or supplier challenges you in your thinking process, giving constructive criticism and advice when needed.

They have a very good team of people around them. That is why they have been so successful. They have been doing this for a long time. They come out here and give us recommendations, and their advice has always been spot on. This is the kind of team that is good to work with.

They have a team of qualified, experienced, and talented employees across offices in India and Singapore and services leading brands globally across sectors including hospitality, retail, food and QSR [quick service restaurant], E-commerce, Telecom, and Financial Services.

They have since expanded their footprint internationally and currently serve clients in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand as well. Cartesian Consulting believes in the power of analytics and data-driven thinking when it comes to marketing decisions. This belief comes from some cutting-edge tools, a lot of smarts, and decades of experience in marketing and CRM. Being direct marketers at heart, Cartesian Consulting doesn't believe in stopping just at the analysis. Instead, they take a deep dive into the campaign design and management as well.

An example of this was the migration of a promotion that was being run a year before I took over the company called "Buy 1, Get 1." This promotion, while increasing top-line sales, was having a negative impact on the bottom line. One day a week on Tuesday, customers could come into Domino's and buy one pizza and get one free. Our business was a Tuesday business with 60 to 70 percent of the sales on that one day.

In October 2014, we migrated out of this with "smart value" promotions, which we worked with Sandeep and his team. Results were outstanding with sales and customer counts meeting expectations and 6 percent positive increase on the bottom line. All of the numbers were in line with our 'joint expectations'.

We have huge growth plans, and I plan to ensure that Cartesian is part of that growth. Sandeep and his team are extremely humble, supportive, always willing to think outside the "pizza box" and willing to challenge. I respect Sandeep and his team and have no hesitation in recommending them to any company.

Is there anything Cartesian Consulting could have improved or done differently?

Not really. However, initially they were running all of their business activities in India. A year ago, I recommended that they should look at bringing their business to other parts of Asia because there are a lot of things happening in other growing Asian markets.

I encouraged them to look into setting up an office in the Singapore region. Now, they have an office in Singapore, which is even better for us.