Background
The challenge
For 70 years Canon has been delivering leading edge imaging technologies to customers across the world. Established in 1937 Canon has grown into a global company operating in a diverse range of markets, including business solutions, consumer imaging, broadcast and communications, medical systems and industrial products.
Canon captures data on an ongoing basis. This data includes the use and reliability of all its printers and multi-function devices in customer’s premises. The captured data is difficult to summarise and visualise, particularly when being applied to marketing and strategic needs.
Canon wanted to understand more about its customers and overlay this with the behaviour seen in the data. In essence, they wanted to identify the type of customer who seemed to be most committed to printing and copying. Canon's long-term aim was to deliver business transformation by segmenting customers and building a support model to service the segments.
Existing analysis in Canon was based purely on invoice-data. As most customers are invoiced quarterly, this effectively meant turning hundreds of data points a year into just four, severely limiting the uses of such data. Identifying the timing of consumption was almost impossible and could only be pin-pointed to the quarter it occurred in, ignoring the fact that information was received on a weekly basis for most installations.
For the first time, we are truly able to put customer behaviour at the centre of our thoughts, which enables us to consider all the ways we can help our customers achieve more of what they want.
The Apteco solution
Canon license Apteco software via their chosen Apteco approved reseller, Dun & Bradstreet, for use in their Business Solutions (B2B) area.
Over 200k customer accounts (both lapsed and current) were matched to the D&B universe, and built into Market Insight (FastStats®), to provide basic segmentation characteristics. Over 400k printer contracts were included, providing a unique insight over time of what customers had installed and what they replaced with. The most complex element was to take over 5 million meter readings from those printers and identify which customers printed at what points in time. This provided the foundation for behaviour-led customer segmentation.
Through the use of Market Insight / Apteco FastStats® tool combined with the D&B data, Canon has achieved full customer segmentation, it also continues to provide the visibility needed to help shape a ‘Customer Centric Approach’, which will ultimately drive a better customer experience over the medium term.
The impact on the business
Explore some examples of how companies currently benefit from Apteco FastStats®.
3m addressable market defined
Having a ‘repeatable process’ around data analytics was a revolution for Canon. To understand customer verticals and scale, then be able to map to the relevant sales team in the CRM, has introduced both rigor and scalability, providing the science to restructure teams across the business to support the new strategy.
122k salesforce records classified
By understanding seasonality by industry and size of organisation, Canon can better serve all customer types and deploy the right resources. The sales teams are now able to use the system both to look-up the relevant company, find the correct division and understand their individual usage trends.
198k customer records
By unlocking the ability to predict most-likely behaviour, Canon can ensure the customer’s needs are met at the right time, in many ways. Through deep analytics, Canon gained a better understanding of customer needs and built a segmentation model for a more customer-led approach to its market
The insight that the Market Insight / FastStats® tool brings to the table has been ground-breaking for us. For the first time, we are truly able to put customer behaviour at the centre of our thoughts, which enables us to consider all the ways we can help our customers achieve more of what they want. As this benefits customers as well as ourselves, it is a great platform for long-term partnerships with customers and should lead to ever-stronger relationships.