In this interview with Analytics India Magazine, Parthasarathy Vallabhajosyula talks about Analytics Quotient and the analytics industry as a whole.

Partha is passionate about marketing analytics and has over 14 years of experience in the field. He has developed and managed very successful analytics practices globally for fortune 500 clients with verticals specifically including CPG, Entertainment & Pharma. He currently leads Business Development for Analytics Quotient & is working at building some temporary office space between him and 2 growing kids, one super active CEO wife and one dog who likes to go for long walks.

Analytics India Magazine [AIM]: What according to you is AQ’s biggest USP that differentiates AQ with similar-sized players in the marketing analytics space in India?

Parthasarathy Vallabhajosyula [PV]: We are seeking to redefine what an analytics service provider can do for clients. When corporations seek to manage business operations with data-driven insights they don’t want agencies who make three hundred page presentations of numbers, graphs and charts, all divorced from ‘what needs to be implemented in the market today’, or what we call ‘actionable market insight’. Clients recommend us for our storytelling ability, or the ability to answer questions which the business wants to understand.

We can do this because we immerse ourselves in the client business, synergizing the disciplines of statistics, technology, data art and technology to unravel the story behind the numbers. Storytelling equips managers with foresight. They stop asking the ‘what’ questions – ‘What is my market share viz a viz competition? And start seeking the more strategic ‘why’ questions like ‘Why is my revenue growing in a scenario where my market share is stagnating?’

AIM: What are the most important contemporary trends that you see emerging in the marketing analytics space across the globe?

PV: Data democratization, ‘instant analytics.’ and Data visualization, are the three emerging trends in the marketing analytics space today.
Well-designed info-graphics and animated data expose new patterns and relationships contained within a data set which creates an ‘instant wow’ and helps managers understand data simply.

Data democratization is better understood as the process of making data available across all business stakeholders. In a large corporation data exists in many formats, scattered across different functions. Data access is usually controlled by a part of the organization that might not need to use the data to make business decisions. Data democratization lies in the sweet spot between analytics and technology. Easy-to-use tools and dashboards pull data across multiple sources, synergize diverse data sets into one usable format, model the data and provide managers with ‘instant analytics.’ available across various end-user devices.

No matter how smart or analytical we are, the human brain doesn’t process large sheets of numbers, it stores pictures and impressions. The best way to understand and represent information is through data visualization.

AIM: Where do you see the bulk of your business coming from? Have Indian businesses started to acknowledge the potential on analytics like their counterparts elsewhere does?

PV: As of now, AQ is concentrated on the US & European markets. Internationally expectations from the ‘business intelligence’ function have undergone a sea change in the last three years. In 2010, when the recession hit most economies across the world, the ‘external operation consultants’ were deemed expensive, and corporations started looking at the ‘backroom analytics boys’ to manage internal intelligence to drive business operations. Thus began the evolution from ‘managing data ‘to’ managing business with insights from data.’

Today Indian businesses are adopting analytics to rationalize operations, improve inventory flows and extract better profits. The availability of ‘cloud’ storage and efficient processing power has made it possible for organizations to manage their ‘Big Data’ better and use data-driven insight to impact day to day business operations.

AIM: What are the most significant challenges you face being in the forefront of analytics space?

PV: Our most critical challenge is always to live up to the expectations our clients have of us. Over the years, our clients have entrusted us with high-impact projects that are critical to the business, and we have embraced the opportunity to partner with them as they redefine how they use analytics within their businesses. This is both the biggest challenge and the greatest thrill of being a young, ambitious start-up. We take this responsibility very seriously and are always trying to execute our plans keeping this expectation in mind.

In general, analytics start-ups like ours always face the challenge of doing more with less. In that regard, we are always hungry for resources – great people, efficient sources of capital, space, time. Getting people into the company at the right time and equipping them with key skills is fundamental to the success of our business, and we are always focused on getting this right.

Partha is a post-graduate from MICA, Ahmedabad and prior to founding Analytics Quotient, he worked as Director-client services for Marketics technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd.