Web Analytics Rock Stars

Rudi Shumpert is a web analytics practitioner in the Atlanta area. Last year he launched a podcast series that has become very popular in the web analytics community: Beyond Web Analytics. Rudi has enlisted some of the top web analytics practitioners in the world to help with his podcasts and has had an amazing list of guests over the first 11 episodes. 

1.  Rudi, this is all pretty amazing to me. How did you even get the idea for this series of podcasts? How did you have the technical know-how to pull it all together? How did you get Adam Greco on board? In short, how did this all happen??

It all happened out of a growing fascination with Web Analytics, and last summer as I spent time scouring the web for every resource I could find to learn more I noticed that there did not seem to be many active podcasts on Analytics. I have been a fan of many types of podcasts from history, entertainment, and more technical ones as well, and I have always wanted to produce one myself. A friend of mine runs a podcast called Tweak & Geek, and I was able to sit in on a few of those to get a good feeling for how to record and manage the podcasts. I already had a variety of audio and video editing software, so it was just a matter of finding the right folks to be on it. One of the things I love about the web analytics community is the sheer number of people out there that are willing to help and lend their knowledge to others. As I have been working with Omniture most of all, I was/am quite a fan of Adam Greco’s blog posts and had interacted with him on twitter for a while. So I reached out to Adam and others to see if there was any interest in doing a podcast, and fortunately he was. It has been great working with Adam, James, and the all of the other guest hosts we have had on the podcast. 

2.  You took an interesting path to web analytics, having been successful in other analytics disciplines and having strong technical skills. Can you talk about that a bit?

I am a true developer at heart, and I have been developing web sites/web applications for about 14 years now. From 2005-2009 I worked for a small company that did hosted data analytics for schools k-12. In this job I helped build a reporting engine similar to Omniture’s SiteCatalyst, that would allow school administrators to segment and track/trend the students throughout the school year. I also spent a lot of time working with the variety of raw data files from the schools to transform them into a common format and load them into our own data warehouse. So when I went to work for Ariba last March it was a natural and rather smooth transition to work with web analytics and the data collection methods that go with that. So with the developer mindset, I read a few books on Web Analytics, and then sat down with the code and web sites and starting tinkering.

3.  You have had Gary Angel, Jim Sterne, Josh Manion, John Lovett, Akin Arikan… some of the top people in web analytics as guests. Who else is out there that you would love to have as a guest? Similarly, are there topics that you have not covered that are at the top of your list?

We have been very fortunate to have the caliber of guests on our podcasts that we have had, and that we have scheduled. Adam and James were instrumental in reaching out to folks they know in the industry to be on the podcast, and the current success we have enjoyed is a direct result. One of our goals of the podcast is to remain vendor agnostic, and we have tried to ensure that we have people from multiple vendors on the podcasts, and we are open to speaking to any vendor in the space. I think this objective stance is key in establishing and maintaining credibility in the Analytics community.

Personally, I would love to talk with Avinash Kaushik and Josh James. We have some great guests lined up to record over the next few weeks, and have some great podcasts recorded that are not yet released, including the second part of the series we did with you. We would love to hear from the listeners out there that have real world analytics challenges to come on the podcast and we will have a guest host whose focus is on the specific area of the challenge, A/B Testing, Multi-Channel, Staffing…etc. Then we would be able to help the listener work through the issue and hopefully come away with some possible solutions. So if you are out there and you would like to be on the podcast to talk shop with us, we would love to have you on the podcast or you can submit a question on the web site www.beyondwebanalytics.com .

4.  Can you share your stats? How many downloads have you had on the podcasts so far?

As of March 9th, 2010 we have had over 9,500 downloads combined. And the velocity of the downloads has been increasing since the beginning of the year. 

5.  The most recent episode was the Omniture 2010 recap. What was the consensus about the Summit this year? We have been really busy so all I have heard about so far was the Killers concert.

The Omniture Summit 2010 Recap is our single day record holder. It had over 250 downloads on the 1st day and also resulted in the highest traffic levels we have seen for a single day. The consensus of Summit, is that it was a first class conference. It exceeded my expectations in being able to learn new things, and being able to interact with not only other attendees but also Omniture employees and other industry leaders. It was really cool to actually meet with listeners and guest hosts of the podcast and the scores of others that I have interacted with on twitter and other forums. And yes, the Killers were incredible! However, seeing Josh James & Bret Error sing a Beastie Boys song might have topped the Killers. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEqjh0qwGQ) 

6.  You seem to have a natural ability to host these things… you even have a great radio voice. Have you ever done this sort of thing in the past?

Thank you! I have not done anything like this in the past, but I have found the whole process to be very rewarding. A few years back I might not have been willing to tackle an endeavor like this or present at a major conference like I did at the Omniture Summit. Again, I think it is the developer in me that keeps pushing myself to learn new skills and to continue to take steps to practice and refine those skills in order stay current that has driven me start blogging, podcasting, and presenting. 

7.   What is your favorite episode? 

It would be too hard to pick just one. This might sound like a line, but my favorite podcast is the next one. I really look forward to planning the podcasts and getting the chance to talk analytics with our guests and being able to continue to interact with each guest long after the podcast has been posted.

Twitter: @rrs_atl

Podcast:  www.beyondwebanalytics.com

Blog:  www.rudishumpert.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rudishumpert

Tags: analytics rock stars, blog, podcasts, web analytics, web analytics podcasts, Web Analytics Professionals
Posted in: Interviews, Online Analytics by Corry Prohens
No Comments »

In the process of using several Social Media Monitoring tools for the work I do in Social Media, Online Search and Public Relations (i.e.: Radian6, Alterian/Techrigy, Sysomos, BrandWatch, Biz360, Crimson Hexagon, Viralheat and Scout Labs to name a few) I discovered a richness in textual based keyword research within one of the tools I use often, Sysomos Map; I’m betting people who perform SEO or SEM probably aren’t aware of how quickly Social Monitoring tools are evolving and how they can help both Search and Web Analytics (I’ll get into the Web Analytics aspect of Social Media Monitoring in a following post).

One thing I noticed while doing traditional keyword research is that it’s tough and tedious to do, and often you end up with very boring keyword phases helpful in driving traffic to your sites; this might be even more true for a job recruitment site like IQWorkforce.com.

By using Sysomos Map I was able to go far beyond search keyword tools such as WordTracker, Google AdWords keyword tool, WordStream or Keyword Discovery in order to discover the phases I Workforce’s audience are using in blogs, message boards, twitter, facebook and mainstream online media. Using Social Media tools you can actually cut down the time it takes to do keyword reaserch for a customer or for yourself.

Sysomos has text mining tools allowing for insights that is intriguing from and SEO standpoint, take this “Buzzgraph” produced from a query (i.e.: IQworkforce OR “IQ Workforce” OR iqworkforce.com)

Source: Sysomos Map

Sysomos Buzzmap shows interrelationships between words and concepts in common with IQworkforce; Sysomos highlights the most frequently occurring terms in context to each other with darker interconnecting lines.

In addition, Sysomos will allow you to create a “segmentation” keyword search (using “sub-keywords”) similar to a web analytics segmentation of traffic by referral source. I can bookmark and compare various keyword segmentation and treat them just like web analytics segments in Google Analytics, Omniture and Coremetrics, for example.

Once I applied the sub-keywords of “analytics OR contractor OR contractors OR web” I got the following Buzzmap, allowing me to drill down deeper into the keywords surrounding IQworkforce.

Sysomos also collects all the blog posts, tweets, forum and message boards, Facebook and online news media that mentions IQworkforce and extracts the most significant phases being used by the authors of those pages. Most SEO/SEM keyword tools were created to just extract phases most often searched for in Google. On the other hand, Sysomos extracts the phases most often used by the online conversations about your brand – and that’s quite different.

I noticed a while back the results of Google’s keyword tools aren’t the most relevant keywords to use for your site – rather, Google gives you the most relevant keywords to advertise against (big difference). As a result, a Social Media keyword extracted list, such as the one I’m producing below, is superior in quality to what average run of the mill keyword research tool actually provides.

Notice how Sysomos identifies phases such as “analytics specialist”, “analytics contract”, “analytics consultant”, “analytics practitioners” and “Karma Analytics” (you can click on the phase and drill down to the actual post/listing if you want).

Sysomos looks at Twitter and Forums and extracts significant phrases out of those sources of online buzz. Often, the information extracted from Twitter or Online Forum conversation threads is somewhat different than what shows up for blogs:

Tweets mentioning IQworkforce also talked about “strategist role”, “quantitative analyst”, “web analytics blogs” and “talent management universe” – these are phases SEO tools normally would fail to pick out, and if you don’t believe me, go ahead and try it using WordTracker, SEOBook, Google AdWords keyword tool, etc.

Most Search tools do not attempt to deal with sentiment analytics while most Social Media Monitoring tools provide sentiment analysis and sometimes, geo-location.

Quite predictably, Sysomos shows that almost all the online chatter in the last 6 months comes from New York State; this is probably OK for a local firm but might be a problem for a national firm. The sentiment about IQworkforce is favorable and if you want to hone in on specific positive/negative mentions, Sysomos allows you to do that.

Often, in SEO keyword research we will look at other competing sites focusing on the same business we do, to find out if we are missing anything in our own keyword metatags. There is an equivalent construct in Social Media monitoring – looking at the related or “blog influence network” to a particular blogs influential in related subjects. First, we identify the influential blogs/bloggers around IQworkforce using Sysomos Influencer Search:

Next, we view the blog influence network of the most influential blog that Sysomos shows us:

We can then go and test out the blogs in the “blog influence network” to find more keyword phrases if we need to.

Armed with the information we extract using a Social Media Monitoring solution like Sysomos you would add those phrases to your content or create new content if your community is uses concepts and words that are absent entirely from your own site (as a result of the way people mention your brand our service online) and increase your rankings on those phases.

To end this article, the main difference between Search Engine Optimization /Marketing and Social Media Monitoring is in the way we search. In organic search engine optimization, we often seek to discover what drives our audiences and what they are searching for in order to “intersect” those searches with content rich with the keyword phases being searched on. In Social Media Monitoring, we are more interested in finding out what other people are “talking about” in related communities we want to be part of, and making sure we are present and part of the conversation – which will also drive traffic to our site.

That’s why Social Media has a different focus than Search and requires different tools – the focus is conversation between virtual friends who are influential in topics related to your business or area of focus. If you want to know more about how to use Search and Social media together – subscribe to my webmetricsguru.com blog – see you there.

Tags: keyword research, monitoring tools, segmentation, seo keyword research, Social Media Monitoring, sysomos, text mining tools, web analytics
Posted in: SEO, Social Media Monitoring by Marshall Sponder
2 Comments »

Greg Dowling is the former global head of analysis for Nokia. He recently left that role to join the senior management team at Semphonic, one of the top web analytics consultancies in the world.

Greg was our client at Nokia, where we worked together to build a global measurement organization that covered the implementation, analysis and data visualization of web and mobile data from Nokia’s consumer services products. He is a good friend for answering the following questions:

1.  The measurement world is buzzing about mobile, yet there seem to be very few practitioners out there that really know the space. Was your phone ringing off the hook with recruiting offers at Nokia?

Well of course you handle all of my recruiting Corry and I would never take a call from another recruiter. However, I have to say that it was ringing, just not as much as you might expect. While industry pundits have been claiming that 20XX will be the “Year of Mobile”, the majority of brands haven’t really embraced mobile fully as of yet. For example, it’s projected that in 2010 only 10% of brands and agencies will have mobile as a line item in their marketing budget and that another 20% are planning to experiment with mobile. So only one-third of the market is looking to do something with mobile in 2010 even though it is the fastest growing and most rapidly adopted personal technology in the world. At the end of 2009 there were 4.6 billion mobile subscribers representing 70% of the world’s population. It has eclipsed Internet growth by a ratio of almost 3:1. With unlimited data plans proliferating and smartphones poised to be almost half of all mobile device sales by 2013 according to Gartner – up from just 8% in 2008, it’s time to embrace mobile marketing and put your strategy together now. This obviously includes a mobile measurement and implementation plan – not an easy thing given the complexity of the mobile measurement space…

2.   I know that you had several internal and external career opportunities to consider. What made you choose Semphonic?

I have been agency side before as part of a digital strategy and analysis organization, but my team was always a ‘part of’ a larger client engagement and not the central focal point of the relationship as it is in a pure analytics consultancy. When I began thinking about joining a web analytics consultancy it was a simple choice – Semphonic. Semphonic has been in this space a long time – 13 years to be exact, and has a stellar reputation as the world’s largest independent analytics consultancy. With a respected team of industry experts like Gary Angel, June Dershewitz and Phil Kemelor, add to that a great roster of clients, the opportunity to build out the New York office, AND focus on mobile analytics – it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

3.   Gary Angel seems like the nicest guy in the world. Tell me the truth – he’s really a total a-hole behind the scenes, isn’t he? Nobody can be that nice.

That’s too funny! Well, I have known Gary for years and have worked with him on several occasions across many different types of engagements. Going back five years ago at Jupiter Research when he briefed me on Functionalism, to most recently at Nokia where he was instrumental in not only assisting me establish Nokia’s global measurement standard, but also leading the hands-on implementation work for several Services. Gary and I have also shared the stage at industry conferences in the past and I think he is one of the most compelling speakers I know. A true master at conveying complex subject matter simply – not a widely held skill, I might add. Truthfully, I can say without a doubt – he is not only the smartest guy I know in the analytics space – but one heck of a nice guy.

4.   You spent ten years becoming an expert in web analytics and the past one or two in mobile. What are you going to focus on for Semphonic? Both? Or is mobile going to be your sole focus?

Both. My title is Vice President of Mobile Strategy & Measurement, but I will focus on all aspects of enterprise analytics including strategy, implementation, reporting, and analysis. Mobile for me is just another channel that needs to be measured. The mobile product offering from Semphonic will seek to provide our clients with the competitive advantage they need to succeed in the mobile space. Our consulting services will range from mobile strategy engagements, where we assist clients is assessing their mobile readiness and the suitability of mobile to their current product offering, through to mobile measurement implementation, reporting, and analysis. The goal is to provide our clients with actionable insights and definitive tactics to make them successful in the burgeoning mobile arena. Oh and of course, I will be hiring…

5.   Given the strength of the Semphonic brand and the growth rate of the web analytics services space, I would guess that they are fighting off acquisition offers from the big agency families. What are the chances that you are working for Omnicom, Publicis (again) or WPP in a year or two?

Strike one, Corry. I actually did work for Omnicom while at Colangelo, so that only leaves WPP as one of my last agency “yet’s”. Of course, I can’t speculate on Semphonic as an acquisition target, but I have to say I think we are in a great position and would be a very attractive acquisition. There are very few boutique web analytics consultancies with hands-on implementation experience AND world class thought leadership – and Semphonic tops the list.

6.    You have been on the agency side, the client side, you have been an industry analyst and now you work for a top consultancy. Unless I am missing one, the only thing you have not done is work for a vendor. What advice would you give about what “types” of people succeed best in each environment?

Strike two, Corry. As matter of fact I have been on the vendor side. In 1995 I managed the New York operations for an online environmental database vendor named Environmental FirstSearch. We had an Internet enabled Visual Basic 5 application that looked very much like Google Maps (except a decade earlier) in which, instead of distance and direction to hotels and restaurants, we populated our interactive maps with hazardous waste sites and chemical spills – good times!

The “types” of people that succeed in any business are those that are passionate about what they do. Folks that take inspiration from challenges and make limitations an opportunity for improvement are bound to succeed. On the agency side it is critical to have a strong sense of urgency as related to client engagements and go out of your way to make the client feel like they are your only customer. Strong communication skills and a knack for business development don’t hurt either. On the client side I found the most success in being able to articulate the current capabilities and inherent limitations of my company’s product offering. Not being afraid to tell it like it is was a great asset of mine. If something isn’t working right, fix it. It’s better to ask for forgiveness later, then to wait for permission now. On the vendor side it’s simple – listen to your customer.

Thank you Greg. Best of luck with your new opportunity. See you at X Change!

Tags: data visualization, digital analysis, digital strategy, interview, mobile measurement, semphonic
Posted in: Interviews, Online Analytics by Corry Prohens
No Comments »

Across all analytical marketing professions, data integrity is guarded and protected like money in a vault. A major advantage of web analytics over traditional market research methods is the ability to collect and analyze all data, not just sample data.

Do you remember the exit polls of the 2000 Presidential election, where myopic sampling methods caused a major fiasco when TV networks prematurely declared Bush the winner of the presidency? If only pollsters could have polled every person voting in every county, not just samples. Do you think the whole controversy could have been avoided? How can 8,132 voters accurately represent a nation of 280 million? As pollsters learned, they can’t. This is the strength of web analytics: data collection of an entire population.

But what happens when web analytics don’t collect data of an entire population?

A Coming of Age Story

During the X Change show, I had the chance to talk to lots of analytics pros who work in the trenches every day. One story in particular caught my attention and -it seemed like- everyone around me.

It’s the story of a young analyst, who worked as consultant at Omniture for several years. He recently hit the jackpot landed a job heading up analytics for a rapidly growing SaaS company. When the time finally came to do his first big presentation for the executive team, he was disappointed to find some of the data he wanted to present looked anomalous. For some reason, data on the entire population wasn’t collected.

Without the time or resources to track down the cause of the wonky data before the presentation, this young analyst chose to use an asterisk on the PowerPoint slide. It was a heartbreaking story of a once bright and shiny young analyst, learning about the real world.

Welcome to the Real World

We’ve all experienced what this young analyst felt. It’s like learning that Santa Claus isn’t real; it’s innocence lost; the kind stuff that makes nice people become bitter, cynical, and jaded. It’s having to undermine your data with an asterisk because somebody else messed it up!

The problem is that Analytics aren’t front and center in requirements or processes in most companies. All too often, the analyst is left out of the conversation. When that happens, who is looking out for the data? It isn’t the content team, it’s not the director of marketing, and it definitely isn’t IT. How can an organization make data-driven decisions without the data?

Fact: When the right JS isn’t on the most important pages, your organization doesn’t get the data it needs to get ahead – or even to just stay in the game. Lost data causes the best-designed strategies to become little more than high-minded wishful thinking.

What you see in your analytics suite is skewed data. If you recognize it, it’s a lucky catch. But I’ve found that in so many cases, data just isn’t being collected, and what’s worse, it’s really difficult to see it’s not being collected! A classic case of the unknown unknown. Even if it is, sometimes it’s useless because the JS isn’t configured (no page names, for example.) The result: an asterisk on your PowerPoint slide.

Bottom line: tracking down individual pages with individual data collection problems in an environment where you don’t know what you don’t know, is like trying to find a needle in a haystack on the surface of Mars with the rover!

Improving data through planning and process

The adoption of some simple (and minimally invasive) practices can go a long way toward improving your data. The assistance of a few purpose-built tools can actually prove that the data collected is complete, valid, and actionable. Personally, I’m a fan of this three-pronged approach: Development QA, Quarterly Audits, and Continuous monitoring.

Development QA

1. After pages are built in dev, use a tool to audit the analytics implementation on each page.
2. After the pages move to staging servers, all pages should get a complete “pre-flight test”. The auditing tool should be run in live mode, allowing server calls to be made. The success of these server calls should be checked in the analytics solution.
3. Audit new pages after they are pushed out to production to ensure the implementation is still intact and ready for prime time.

Quarterly Auditing

Every page over the entire site should be audited quarterly to confirm analytics are working correctly, to identify any problems, and to show complete implementation for reporting purposes. Specific items to watch for are:

a.   All pages are tagged

b.   JS File is linked and working

c.   Pixels are loading

Continuous Monitoring

Landing pages, checkout process, unsubscribe forms, and other mission-critical pages or multi-step processes should be continuously monitored to ensure the pixels always fire. This prevents long periods of data loss.

Outcomes

With some forethought and the right tools, you can make huge strides toward ousting the asterisk. Processes, such as I’ve discussed here, can remove much of the ambiguity and doubt in analytics data. By confiscating the weapons that management uses to attack analytics recommendations, you can help your organization make use of the insights you find.

The Possibilities:

1. Metrics and significant data associations are presented as the facts they are, not just hypothesis or observational data.
2. Valuate web analytics to management, advertisers, and publishers.
3. Earn upper-management / executive action based on Web Analytics observations and inferences.
4. Earn funding for marketing initiatives.

John Pestana is a co-founder of Omniture, and has recently co-founded ObservePoint, makers of web analytics tag auditing and monitoring software. More information on tag auditing and pixel monitoring tools can be found at http://www.OustTheAsterisk.comand http://www.ObservePoint.com

Tags: actionable analytics, metrics, web analytics
Posted in: Direct Marketing Analytics by John Pestana
1 Comment »

Paul Lee is the Director of Professional Services for Unica in Asia/Pac.  Our team has worked with Paul to place some of the first web analytics professionals for Unica in Australia.  Unica is growing their web analytics (NetInsights, etc.) business in the region aggressively, so we asked Paul to sit for an interview.

1. On which parts of Unica’s product suite are you focusing for the Asia/Pac market? What is the reason for that focus?

Historically, Unica Asia/Pac has had a focus in the direct marketing space. Customers here have seen the demonstrated benefits of Unica’s suite from markets abroad and have realised that it is indeed the most comprehensive and progressive solution to support next generation marketing needs. Unica is now expanding into the on-line marketing arena as marketers recognize that the online channel is becoming the key marketing channel, and provides a wealth of opportunities for marketers. Online behavioral data is a mission-critical asset that businesses can leverage to increase revenue, improve results and deliver differentiated and more personalized customer experiences. As web data and web marketing needs to be managed in much the same manner as any other critical business data Unica’s heritage in data-driven marketing technology solutions sets it apart from competition in terms of being able to help clients with their progression online.

2. What are the main differences between the Asia/Pac marketplace for web analytics and the EU market and the US market?

Generally speaking, the Asia/Pac marketplace is not too dissimilar to the EU or US market other than perhaps in terms of scale. With the penetration and usage of high speed internet being some of the highest in the world it is logical that more and more businesses will be attempting to establish marketing dialogues with these online customers. It is also fully expected that customers in Asia/Pac will seek advantage in leveraging a platform that can integrate cross channel marketing initiatives.

3. What do you see as the main competitive advantages that NetInsight has over your competitor’s products (webtrends, omniture, etc.)?

Unica’s approach to online marketing is advantageous in a number of ways. Unica NetInsight is based upon superior technology compared to our competition. NetInsight uses a soft tagging approach to data collection instead of traditional hard coded page tags which allows marketers the flexibility to keep up with the pace of business change. This approach minimizes the need for marketers to decide up-front what site goals and visitor segments need to be implemented via page tags, which typically have been complex, prone to error, slower to deploy and more intensive to maintain.

NetInsight is also designed with a flexible and open data architecture which means that marketers can now drill down into web data like never before. NetInsight stores data down to such a granular level that users can implement segments, reports, metrics or dimensions for analysis far easier than before and all this can be configured through a single role-based interface – providing businesses with unsurpassed flexibility. At Unica we’re proud that our product is ‘Democratizing’ access to web analytics by extending self service for web marketers and empowering them, and in turn the business they represent, to grow and be successful.

NetInsight is also clearly differentiated via its deployment flexibility. Unlike other vendor offerings, it is available both as an on-demand or enterprise software solution with the ability to shift seamlessly from one delivery model to another, over time, with the same product. Whether the shift is due to business growth, IT or compliance requirements, Unica’s solution can adapt with you.

Lastly, NetInsight is part of Unica’s leading marketing product suite. For companies that need a broader next generation marketing solution, for example email, campaign management, marketing resource management, website personalization across on and offline channels, Unica is uniquely placed to take your business on this journey. Only Unica truly offers a comprehensive interactive marketing solution enabling companies to engage customers, prospects and anonymous web visitors in an interactive cross-channel dialogue.

4. How do you think your professional services / support organizations stack up against those of your competitors?

Unica is very committed to web analytics success in Asia Pacific and despite a global financial crisis of a depth and scale never before seen, our professional services team has been expanded in every major geography, giving good coverage of major business centres in the region. We have also made investments in Customer Engagement resources to ensure that we do our utmost to enable customer success and have our customer’s solutions optimally tuned so they are gleaning the benefits of our best in class platform. For our NetInsight on-demand offering, Unica has invested in Technical Account Management resources to ensure that online marketers and IT stakeholders alike have ready access to experts within the region as required. In addition to this, Unica has also made further investments in enhancing service levels provided from our Asia Pacific technical support centre, along with the implementation of online portals and user forums to foster greater customer intimacy and also to facilitate networking and knowledge sharing.

5. What is the perfect NetInsight customer?

The perfect NetInsight customer is one that wants to get up and running quickly and also has a vision beyond just web measurement and into integrated on and offline marketing. They would typically be on a growth path beyond just reporting into optimization and segmentation and has an eye toward interactive marketing, that is, behavioural targeting on a site and into the future perhaps even beyond the web site. Unica is confident that there are many businesses like this in Asia/Pac.

6. What are your biggest human resource challenges in the Asia/Pac region?

Characterised by the diversity of more than 35 distinct sovereign countries, each with a blend of cultures and languages spread over vast physical distances, the business environment in Asia/Pac is as challenging as it is unique. These characteristics present special needs and considerations with respect to human resource management, some of which include:

• Geographic coverage and alignment. Countries within the region have vastly different business environments, protocols, cost structures and expectations. This often requires an in-country or close- proximity presence in order to be successful. Equally, having a distributed organisation requires innovative solutions to foster communication, collaboration and development.
• Language and cultural considerations. Like localized software, human resource also requires ‘localisation’. There are quite a few countries in the region, where English is very much a second language in business. It is often advantageous to have local staff or partners with language skills and sensitivity to local customs and cultural requirements. HR policy and regulations also differ across each country so a working knowledge of these differences, along with processes to deal with them, is critical.

Tags: marketing, NetInsight, paul lee, unica, web analytics
Posted in: Interviews by Corry Prohens
No Comments »