What Does The Data Say?

This is going to be a series of posts over several weeks.

I recently received a call from a past client who asked for my help in creating next year’s revenue forecast for his company. I would be working with his finance people and whoever else I thought might add value.  

The company is a web development firm providing a variety of web services to small and medium-sized firms while occasionally landing a whale. Last year's revenue was roughly $10 million. This year's revenue is predicted to be $7.5 million, the decrease was largely due to a downturn in the marketplace due to Covid.

So I began the engagement by asking for a lot of data related to Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How they created previous results. I also asked for all the data they had on their current customer base segmented by size of annual revenue, # of employees and sales by industry, product, and gross annual sales by service provided. While they were gathering their data I went and retrieved some market data for web developers who played in my clients' space regardless of location. 

The collective findings were more than interesting. The client’s data was immature compared to the readily available market data. In other words, the client rarely checked their data against readily available market data. When asked “why” the client's response was always “We don’t have the time”. I discovered the real answer was “We don’t know how”.

As a beginning reference point, I showed the client the above graphic and asked “What does this tell you?” It clearly shows a correlation between smart advertising and economic growth.

So if the data shows that advertising correlates to economic growth what should you do when sales are showing a downturn? The answer: Advertise with the right message targeted at the right audience. If you are concerned about a downturn don’t you think your clients are as well?

The global digital transformation market size was valued at USD 284.38 billion in 2019 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.5% from 2020 to 2027. Growing demand for the adoption of “smart technologies (AI) across industries is promoting the introduction of connected and data-rich business solutions. These solutions are capable of embedding intelligence into business operations to facilitate better and more effective customer engagements.

Digital transformation is more than yesterday's web development propositions. To prosper web developers will need to change their mindset so they can learn to change their value proposition.

The marketplace is rapidly maturing by leveraging individual and collective data. Learning how to use your own data and that of your customers and the overall marketplace provides significant growth opportunities previously unforeseen. This story will continue.....