Business & Money Trail:

GBI BOOSTS INTERNET ANALYTICS WITH ACCRUE'S G2 PATH

Global Technology Business Intelligence (GBI) has announced the local availability of Accrue Software's G2 Path, an advanced e-CRM application that brings pattern analytics to the Accrue G2 platform.

Accrue is the world leader in the provision of Internet analytics and customer behavior solutions; with G2 Path it allows companies to uncover information through data mining techniques, allowing users to uncover combinations of events, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction.

"Companies are acknowledging that complex customer behaviour cannot be understood without including so-called 'soft and fuzzy' metrics," says Johan Cloete, CEO at GBI.

"Accrue G2 Path is a natural fit for companies that need a deeper and more precise analysis of customer behavior than they can get using other methods. They can begin answering questions such as 'What combination of events led to this purchase?' as against simple analysis: 'What are the top selling items this week?'"

Accrue G2 Path features and benefits include:

• Full suite of interactive analysis tools, which together provide a comprehensive and powerful framework for using navigational data to answer a variety of business questions.
• Segmentation controls, which allow companies to isolate and compare the navigational behaviour of specific customer segments.
• Highly responsive interactive analysis performance, enabled by a path data storage format and data compression approach specifically designed to handle the huge volumes of online and offline data.
• High-speed data processing turnaround times, which ensure that business users have near real-time access to the information they need to make decisions.

With Accrue G2 Path, companies can extend the value of their customer data through the use of interactive analysis tools including:

• Path Analyzer: Identifies and ranks the various paths that meet specific criteria. For example, using Path Analyzer, a merchandiser can determine precisely how internet customers reached a particular product, and how the purchasing rate varies by path.
• Path Explorer: Analyses a single navigational sequence in detail, showing the falloff at each consecutive step, and how customers enter and exit from the sequence. One use of Path Explorer is to examine progress through a multi-step process such as sign-up or checkout, in order to identify drop-off points and subsequent destinations.
• Element Explorer: Is similar to Path Explorer, but is used to analyse "fuzzy" multi-step processes, providing insight into business processes without strict consecutive sequence.
• Affinity Analyzer: Identifies affinities between products, services and content. For example, using the Affinity Analyzer, companies can identify cross-selling opportunities or identify areas which need attention in order to improve the overall user experience.
• Affinity Explorer: Analyses an affinity in detail, showing the steps customers take to go from one product or service to another.

"The success of business depends to a large extent on the ability of companies to analyse, determine, understand and predict what customers are doing and will do," adds Cloete. "G2 Path satisfies that requirement, and will help companies sharpen the precision and focus of their customer initiatives."

Accrue Software, founded in 1996 has more than 600 customers, including industry leaders such as Citicorp, Dow Jones & Company, Eastman Kodak, Lands' End, Macy's, Lycos Europe and Deutsche Telekom. It has strategic application and platform partnerships with IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, BroadVision, ATG, DoubleClick and Vignette.

GBI is the sole distributor for Accrue products in Southern Africa.