Social Media and Marketing

Interview with Scott Staples, CEO, Knowledge Services Unit, MindTree Ltd.By Ritesh GuptaAhead of EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit Europe, taking place on 17-18 June, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke with Scott Staples, CEO of the Knowledge Services Unit at MindTree Ltd.

Published: 10 Jun 2010

Interview with Scott Staples, CEO, Knowledge Services Unit, MindTree Ltd.

By Ritesh Gupta

Ahead of EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit Europe, taking place on 17-18 June, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke with Scott Staples, CEO of the Knowledge Services Unit at MindTree Ltd.

Scott shared his insight into how sophisticated data analytics can be used to assist travel companies in improving segmentation and targeting to increase customer satisfaction and revenue generation.

Excerpts:

Can you give us a brief about MindTree and the Knowledge Services Business Unit?

MindTree Ltd. is a Global Services and Solutions Company. Established in 1999, MindTree has grown to 8,500 MindTree Minds around the world and $273 Million in revenue.Our mission is: Successful Customers; Happy People; and Innovative Solutions.

MindTree’s Knowledge Services Business Unit is in the business of helping companies turn Data into Information and Information into Knowledge through Consulting, Analytics, Business Intelligence (Dashboards), and Data Services. MindTree utilizes a unique combination of domain and functional expertise to help customers gain business insights in areas such as Customer, Marketing, Sales, Operations, and HR across industries such as Travel, CPG, Retail, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, and Media. Our expertise is backed by a pool of world-class statisticians, business analysts, and data integration experts who have experience on all the leading statistical frameworks and techniques.

What areas in of travel industry does MindTree work in? Who are some of the customers that you work with?

MindTree’s odyssey with travel industry started 10 years back, with a track record of delivering IT solutions to global customers across the Travel Supply Chain spanning Suppliers, Travel Distribution, Outlets/Agencies, Infrastructure Support, Restaurants, and Accommodation & Leisure. Some of the marquee names MindTree works in Travel industry include: SITA, IATA, Avis Budget Group, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Marriott, Travelport, and TravelCLICK.

How do your customers perceive the value Knowledge Services bring to the table? Can you give us some real-life examples?

MindTree primarily works with business users to help them gain insights into business issues. For example, we recently worked with EVP of Marketing and SVP of Operations of a leading Fleet and Card Management Company. They wanted to understand their customer segments beyond just size and SIC code and basically improve service. We told them there is a better way to do segmentation. We analyzed over 310 million customer records, and came up with 6 new buckets of customer segments. We did customer segmentation using Cluster Analysis and Unstructured Text Mining for sentiment analysis, all resulting into a 360 view of customer, new customer segments that drive new product, pricing, and service strategies and increased cross sell and up sell opportunities. The customer was able to streamline their customer treatment strategies, change lines of credit, and change billing cycle based on customer behavioral attributes. Essentially, digging deeper using statistical techniques helped them optimize their cost and generate additional revenue.

Our customers have looked upon us for our relentless focus on customer satisfaction, our ability to work as a partner, coupled with our ability to combine Domain, Functional, Tools, and Statistical expertise all under one roof.

How do you see the Analytics and KPO market shaping MindTree, who are the players you encounter most and what are MindTree’s differentiators?

There are many service providers in the market who specialize in one particular area of the data landscape. These include companies who offer BI services, or Data Strategy services, or even Analytics services. MindTree’s focus is on the entire value chain related to generating an insight – right from data (structured and unstructured)  statistical processes  insight generation using domain  operationalizing the insight.

In order to turn data into information, the following expertise is needed:

• Data Strategy
• Business Intelligence
• Analytics and statistical expertise
• Functional – Subject knowledge (sales, marketing, operations, risk, etc.)
• Domain – Industry knowledge

We bring all of the above expertise under one roof.

What trends are you seeing in the Travel industry where Analytics can play a critical role?

A downturn is often the best time to introspect – more out of necessity than choice. During the current downturn, Travel companies have realized that they have a wealth of data both in terms of volume and quality that can answer a range of questions. We’re seeing that companies are realizing the applicability of Analytics in making decisions impacting both the top and bottom line. For example, on one end of the spectrum, Analytics is being used to understand cost aspects, contribution of various parameters to cost at a much more granular level than was earlier done. On the other end of the spectrum, companies are seeing value in applying Analytics for more top-line impact. As an example, we’re seeing activity wherein companies are now going down the path of understanding the customer better to offer ancillary products through very targeted marketing initiatives.

How do you assess the maturity level of data analytics in terms of offering an aggregated view of customers’ transactional and behavioral data? How does it help in understanding the behaviour of customers?

Analytics provides a very powerful tool to get an aggregated view of the customers’ transactional and behavioural data. One needs to take a step back at this point and realize that this is true when the right technology tools have been applied to efficiently aggregate this data. In today’s digital age, one needs to also realize that combining offline and online data is key to understand customer behaviour and often the end result from analyzing this combined data is a surprise to the enterprise that has had this data in isolation. Customers today often combine offline and online behaviour within one transaction – one classic example is of the segment of shoppers who go to one online channel for the “look” and then to another for the “book”. Again, customer experience in the online and offline channel has to be consistent and analytics can help provide insight into customer behaviour and perception with regards to their experience.

How is the travel industry making use of predictive analytics software to better understand and respond to customers’ preferences?

Consider our own buying preferences and one will see that “context aware” marketing activities are probably the most effective. Analytics can help Sales and Marketing organizations build “context aware” campaigns. From a Travel industry supplier perspective, understanding the guest’s “context” and “preferences” form the first step. Effectively targeting the potential guest for acquisition and engaging with current guests for better engagement are the two logical points that contribute to increased top line. To aid this, one can efficiently use data that is converted to actionable information. Travel Suppliers, over the years, have what we see as a “treasure trove” of data about their guests. Using this historical data effectively at this stage allows these companies to build predictive models for their customer campaigns. We’re seeing suppliers increasingly turn to this data to find the right customer segments, channels to sell to these customers and products to offer to these customers to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns.

What made you choose TDS Europe and what do you plan to showcase at the Summit?

The Travel industry is one of the biggest domain areas for MindTree. It is also a primary focus industry for MindTree’s Knowledge Services. Therefore, MindTree decided to be a part of this industry event and hopes to share its experience and success stories specifically in Analytics area with the industry leaders visiting the Summit. We look forward to this event and welcome you all to visit us at Booth # 35.