The Fifth Elephant 2012

The session will give an understanding of how advance analytics can be used to drive profitable growth in eCommerce business. Various problems that exists along the eCommerce value chain are identified and analytics solutions for the same discussed.

Outline

Hewlett Packard has an online store (HPDirect.com) that provides consumers the option to purchase products online and have them delivered at the convenience of their homes. This session describes operations research solutions to a variety of problems that manifest along the e-commerce value chain, with the objective of growing share in the online sales market. First, we identify and quantify the impact of key drivers of online traffic to enhance the marketing planning and budget allocation process. Next, we apply Bayesian modeling and Markov Chain methods to predict which customers are most likely to buy which product, when are they likely to make a purchase, and through which marketing channel. Finally, we use a hybrid forecasting approach combining time series and regression modeling, to accurately predict customer orders for optimizing warehouse inventory-holding, and ensuring timely fulfillment of customer orders. These solutions when used together have led to millions of dollars in incremental impact for HPDirect.com

Speaker bio

Ahmar Abdullah:
“Ahmar is a Database marketing/analytics professional with 6+ years of experience in customer-focused advanced and predictive analytics, primary research, strategic analytic insight & deep B2C customer knowledge. In his current role in HP Global Analytics he leads a team of Analytics practitioners primarily focused on driving CRM strategies for HP Consumer businesses across regions. Ahmar completed his Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from ZHCET, AMU and Masters in Business Administration from Goa Institute of Management.”

Bharathan Shamasundar:
“Bharathan is an analytics professional with over 8 years of experience across Financial Planning and Analysis, Risk and Marketing analytics at HP and GE. Bharathan currently works in the Ecommerce Analytics team at HP Global Analytics supporting HP’s US B2C Ecommerce Store – HPDirect.com. Over the last 3 years, Bharathan’ s work at Global Analytics has spanned all the value chain elements of an Ecommerce store, with Customer Retention Analytics being the current area of focus. Bharathan holds a Bachelor’s in Commerce from Bangalore University, a Masters in Finance from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.”