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| Digital Transformation Dilemmas and Why Marketing Without Analytics is a Dead End Approach | For the past two and a half years Joerg Esser, managing director of Thomas Cook in the Netherlands, (he is currently located in the UK as managing director Hotels4U/Group head of long tail since June 2014), has been tasked with the digital transformation of a traditional tourism company. If he has learnt just one thing during this process it is that the transition to data driven organisation can only happen if you are able to change the culture. “A company won’t become more data driven simply by beefing up the yielding department, or the customer insights department, or the marketing department, or any other department,” he says. Instead the desire to be data driven needs to be anchored in the culture of the business; this means turning around every single part of a business by bridging analytics and the latest forecasting methodologies and making them digestible for everybody. The good news is that digital transformation seems to be delivering for Thomas Cook with EBIT profitability continue to grow year on year. So what are his top tips? 1. Simplicity is central to success On data side and organisational side, everything needs to be simplified. The insights from analytics need to be boiled down to simple, actionable insights and all parts of the organisation must be simplified so they can act and react quickly on insights from big data. 2. Mobilise your management team and change your thinking All decisions within the organization must be based on data and on fact, and that needs to be driven from the top. What you don’t want is each department working off their own reporting systems as while that might work in isolation, it won’t lead to a cohesive approach to data and analytics. Nor is it enough to have five, ten or 50 data experts doing cutting edge analytics in a corner of the building. A data-led approach needs to filter into all parts of the business. 3. Hire the right people One of the biggest challenges facing any online businesses today is finding people who have both business skills and an understanding of numbers. That doesn’t mean that everybody in the business needs to do rocket science, but for the vast majority of roles – particular in departments like marketing and sales - you need somebody with a feel for numbers and a commercial spirit. 4. Ditch a classical approach to marketing Marketing as a discipline is seeing the largest shift of all in terms of the skills required to the job. While finance departments have also had to look differently at things like yielding, end-to-end profitability and acquisition costs, the mentality here has always been finance driven. Not so in marketing, where the days of simply creating a fantastic poster or nifty message are over.Of course creativity is still highly relevant, but if you require somebody to manage more than one marketing function, then you need to hire somebody with problem-solving ability too. In Esser’s view, if you are doing marketing without analytics there is no point in doing it. “I cannot imagine any kind of business that can afford doing this,” he says. In other words, marketing is no longer a safe place to be, if you are not into numbers. If you don’t understand the cross-channel world, where and why conversions matter, what Google is up to or the problem you are trying to solve then, you may as well be doing it blindfolded. “That used to be enough, but it isn’t any more,” says Esser. Joerg Esser, managing director of Thomas Cook in the Netherlands will be sharing more insights at the upcoming Smart Travel Analytics & Revenue Management, Europe, 2014 to be held in Amsterdam from November 24-25. About
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Upcoming Events: Smart Travel Analytics & Revenue Management Europe 2014 (November 24-25, 2014) Smart Travel Analytics N. America 2015 (January 28-29, 2015) Online Marketing, Social Media & Mobile in Travel Asia 2015 (February 3-4, 2015) Mobile & Innovation in Travel N. America 2015 (March 23-24, 2015) Contact:
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