The Why of Web Analytics

Reality: Not all customers, who walk in and out of a department store, would purchase an item. Managers probably wouldn’t notice you entered the store. If you bought an item, then they would know that something was sold and a little bit more information when you use a membership card.

"Web sites are becoming the most important customer touch point and the most important revenue generator, even for businesses that are not first of mind. "

The exact opposite happens when you visit a website. When you view someone else’s webpage, you will leave significant data that they can use to trail every activity you did there. Let’s use EBay as an example. The website identifies every “aisle” you walked through, whatever item you clicked and put on to your cart and then thrust aside. If you buy an item, the site manager will know your address, what website you came from and in what exact web page you are viewing and a lot more.

How could this be possible?

There are tools and research methodologies that can be used to make web reports faster and more efficient. It can represent data in graphs, tables and texts that you can imagine how challenging it is to create a manual version of this. In addition, the most common tool used Google Web Analytics.

But no matter what tools you applied or how huge the data you’ve gathered, data will be useless if you can’t understand them. Basically, in order to comprehend it, you need to know WHAT happened. Quantities can give you an idea how a certain data reached that conclusion. For example, 99% of female customers prefer L’Oreal than Revlon. But why did they like L’Oreal? Obviously, quantitative data cannot answer WHY something like that happened. This is the reason why qualitative data is also important. Knowing the reaction of the customers will give the latter an idea how to improve their products.

Qualitative data can be of different types – customer behavior and interaction, brand buzz, brand value and a lot more. Among these types, perhaps the most useful data point for your analysis is customer behavior and interaction in your website. Well, interacting with your customers can give you insights which can help you achieve richer impact in decision making.

As what our group discussed in Mr. Ramon Duremdes’ class, there are different methodologies that can help you collect Customer Qualitative data. These are the following:

Lab Usability Testing.
Lab usability tests determine the user’s capability to accomplish a task. Typically, participants of eight to twelve are invited. In the beginning of the test, as few as five users will highlight which parts of the customer experience or processes are working well and which ones are causing problems. Eventually, patterns will emerge. This test is best for optimizing user interface designs and understanding the customer – their voice and what they really do.

Site Visits (Follow-Me-Home-Studies)It is the finest way to get as close to the customer’s environment. In site visits, customers are being observed in their own home or office. User researchers examine how they complete their task in a real-world environment. It can be entirely observational or interactive – you can ask questions or simply observe them, or answer what the customers’ questions might be.

Heuristic Evaluations
It is sometimes called “Expert Analysis”. The goal of this method is to attempt to complete the tasks on the website as a customer would. Usually, it is done with a maximum of five evaluators in a group. Just like any other methods, it follows a set of principles known as heuristic. Some of these are:
- Do not obstruct or compete with user’s critical tasks.
- Allow users to purchase without registering.
- Avoid using colors as the only source of important data.
- Use your user’s vocabulary.
- Link names should communicate the content of the page they are link to avoid generic links such as Click here and more.


Surveying
It is a traditional method of collecting feedbacks from a very large number of customers. It is inexpensive and fast. There are two types of surveys:

Website surveys – These surveys pop up or pop under. Typically, it is served on a website and generated by some rules.

Post surveys – This one is sent via e-mail. It’s being sent to invite feedback from the customers after their experience in the website or after visiting a site.



PhilHealth has generated its own website to give the customers the freedom to check out their company information, services offered and frequent updates. For them to know if their customers are interested with their services or just happen to click their website accidentally and later on moved out of it or what page they have usually exit, it’s better to use Google analytics. It will give them a wider view of information about their customers. With regards to the company’s website, they can actually use one of the four methodologies mentioned earlier to find out what problems or experiences their customers have frequently encountered. Among those four, I think the most applicable for them to use is the heuristic evaluations. They can gain familiarity in how and what their customers usually do in PhilHealth’s website and with that they can create improvements for the areas which they think are lacking.


Using the great tools for data mining, the What (quantitative) and the Why (qualitative) can be combined to provide the company with a long term strategic competitive advantage.

Online reputation: What matters most?

“Freedom” is a wonderful privilege given to any Internet users. However, in some sense, it is a heavy burden since it requires a great deal of responsibility – being accountable for everything you say or do in the virtual world. Practically, people use this privilege to create their online identity and eventually strengthen it to establish an online reputation.

We learned from our Data Mining class under Mr. Ramon Duremdes Jr. that ONLINE REPUTATION is the evaluation of people about you and your web activities. It is an essential factor in many fields such as education, business, online communities and most especially social status. Nowadays, the way that your personal name appears on search engine is your new résumé, business card and handshake rolled into one. Everyone can run a background check on you through online with just a few clicks of the mouse so it’s better to manage and control every activity you have in the Web as it might affect you in the future.

“Good news spreads fast, bad news even faster.”

Effortless as it may seem but it takes years to build your online reputation and an hour is enough to ruin it. It’s absolutely simple to destroy the good online image you have developed considering how easy and accessible it is for people to spread information online. Blogs, social networking sites and forums are open for comments – whether positive or negative ones. If negative statements are found using search engines then it is likely that you’ll lose your reputation. Of course, nobody wants to lose their own reputation – neither a business man nor a student. In order to avoid this, should be frequently monitored.


As discussed by our group, health insurance, monitoring what’s your business reputation status may help you increase potential customers, gain customer loyalty, assist decision-making and develop strategy planning. One way to keep track of how well you or your company has become in the Web is by utilizing search engine and monitoring tools. According to the book Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Dr. Jaudy Strauss, there are 3 Do-it-yourself monitoring tools. These are the following:

RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) Reader
It is a system for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. It is easier to use since you don’t have to visit each site regarding the topic you wanted you view. Feeds related to the keywords you entered in the search engine will automatically shows up.

E-mail Updates
Basically, you have to sign up to the company’s email newsletter. Every time there are updates about the company you’ll automatically receive an email. The only advantage disadvantage is that you’ll receive lots of emails from time to time. Aside from subscribing to the company’s email updates, you can use Google alert.

Tracking Software
It is simply a tracking tool that follows the changes happening within the company. Here are the top 5 tools we think is the most reliable to use. Let us discover each uses and what can it offer to you and your business.


Google Alert is the leading search engine worldwide. It allows you to keep track of everythingincluding your name, your work and information about your brand. Aside from its reliability, Google alert is also easy to use. You just have to input the keywords and choose what type of topics you wish to monitor (news, blogs, etc.) You could also select when to get the result and in a moment, the topic you searched for is already available in your e-mail.

Serph is social search engine which is specifically designed as a buzz tracking tool. It works by searching various online social media sites to find the latest buzz on the web. Recent buzz updates are shown first since it is automatically being sorted out and organized.


Bloglines is a web-based news aggregator for reading syndicated feeds using the RSS and Atom formats. It offers an application programming interface that can be used to search its database of feed entries, ping the service and write software that can read feeds when a blog has been updated. Lately, it has introduced to the market the use of mobile bloglines wherein searches and updates can be done using your own mobile phone. This is a handy and convenient way of tracking your company’s reputation.

Another well-known tracking tool is Technorati. Just like the others, it’s an internet search engine wherein it looks at the tag that is placed on the blog. Recent results are shown first since these tags help categorize each result.


BoardTracker is the leading search engine for message boards and forums and provides innovative search, analysis and social networking technology to bring people closer to the boards. A single comment on a blog or a conversation in different sites is indeed difficult to track. But with this, you can monitor what people think about your company.


Among these tools, I think the most appropriate for Philhealth to use is Google alert. It is can be used in researches regarding current health problems, market share growth and others. Since it’s a government corporation, it definitely has a hectic schedule and Google alert can save their time in doing research. Well, it can also update them about their customers’ opinions concerning their service and performance and upon knowing what others view about them, they’ll be able to create appropriate actions whenever issues popped up.


In online environments, the chance for damaging your company - including its people, brand, products or services - is eternal. Once you posted something on the web you cannot take it back. Today, people are very mindful and what others say matters the most. Since that’s the case, you should be very careful with what you’ll say about your brand and even the competitor’s brand. If it happens that you were informed that something negative is written against you in the web, do not panic. You can use the web to counter-attack these problems. Besides, you can always manage and track your reputation using these monitoring tools.

Data Mining: Discovery of a valuable treasure

By this moment in time, you've probably heard something about data mining – today’s hottest catchword. To use a plain analogy, it's like finding a treasure buried deeply in an island. In this case, the treasure is that particular piece of intelligence your business requires and the island is the huge data warehouse you've put together over a long period of time.

Data mining is, indeed, a treasure seeker. Even though it is a newly introduced technology, most companies use its great potential to help their businesses focus on the most vital information. In the article An Introduction to Data Mining: Discovering Hidden Value in your Data Warehouse, Kurt Thearling defined data mining as the extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases. Basically, large information is being break down into simpler and essential ones, simultaneously uncovering patterns and forecasting future trends.

The main objective of data mining is to discern previously unknown relationships among the data, especially when the data came from different databases. In order to do that, the following techniques are being applied.

o Artificial neural networks: usually called "neural network" (NN), a mathematical model that aims to replicate the structure or functional aspects of biological neural networks.

o Decision trees: Tree diagram that serves as a decision tool. Specific decision tree methods include Classification and Regression Trees (CART) and Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID).

o Genetic algorithms: Optimization techniques that use process such as genetic combination, mutation, and natural selection in a design based on the concepts of evolution.

o Nearest neighbour method: A technique that classifies each record in a dataset based on a combination of the classes of the k record(s) most similar to it in a historical dataset (where k ³ 1). Sometimes called the k-nearest neighbour technique.

o Rule induction: The extraction of useful if-then rules from data based on statistical significance.

Applying these, businesses can use relationships to develop new marketing campaigns or foresee how well a product will sell. For example, mining a supermarket database could reveal that particular items are procured together, such as beer and chips, cereal and milk, etc. It can reveal that customers with a common set of demographic characteristics will purchase same items, shop at similar times and regularity, be evenly brand loyal or disloyal, purchase related groups of items, or react to a particular type of promotion. These techniques are also used by the government to detect illegal or prohibited activities by individuals, associations, and other governments.


As data have grown in bulk and complexity, manual data analysis has gradually more been amplified with indirect, automatic data processing. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), also part of Business Intelligence, is a model that allows complex analytical and impromptu queries with a quick execution time. It uses navigational database to look for specific data within the data warehouse for a short time. Reporting, visualization, and other analysis tools can also be applied in decision making and validate the impact of the possible plans.


Aside from choosing the right technology for data mining, it is also crucial to consider two important factors to achieve success in using it. These are:

“large, well-integrated data warehouse and a well-defined understanding of the business process within which data mining is to be applied.”


Since data mining can only bare patterns that are present in the data, the target data set should be broad enough to contain these patterns while being brief and direct enough to be mined in suitable time range. It’s also trouble-free to use data mining if you know the business process well. It’s simple to point out or query explicit data since it what’s needed are already been recognized.


Besides, data mining can also contribute in customer relationship management (CRM) applications. A company can focus its efforts on prospects that are forecasted to have a high possibility of responding to an offer rather than contacting each customer randomly through a call center or sending mail which can be more time consuming. To determined which channel and which offer an individual is most likely to respond to, more sophisticated techniques may be used. It can also optimize assets across operations – across all potential offers.

“Data mining seeks treasure.”

Yes, it does! It seeks relevant data which when turned into information creates and gives useful plans, patterns and future forecasts. These are used by the companies to generate industry-driven decisions in order to increase profitability and boost company performance.

This blog is another activity in Datamin class under Mr. Ramon Duremdes Jr. Data mining is also discussed in my classmatess'blog entries, the links of their names are found in the left corner of this page.:)

Government corporation: Gaining Competitive Advantage using Information Technology

It wasn’t long ago when people first created computers and used it as a tool in acquiring and storing information. Since then, advancements with Information Technology have been made and this world has evolved into the "Information Age”. Generally, IT is all about the use of software applications and computer hardware to manage data and helps facilitate decision making and business processes in specific fields.

Competition in almost every industry intensifies, so organizations need to create something that will differentiate them from others. In fact, IT has been utilized by organizations to develop innovative products and unique business processes to acquire competitive advantage. It is stated by Haag (6th edition book, Chap 2) that important IT applications most of these organizations used include Supply chain management (SCM) system . It is an IT system that supports supply chain management activities by automating the tracking of inventory and information among business processes and across companies. Next is Customer relationship management (CRM) system that uses information about customers to gain insights into their needs, wants, and behaviors in order to serve them better. Customers interrelate with companies in many ways, and each interaction is simple, pleasurable, and error free. Then, Integrated collaboration environment (ICE) is the setting where virtual teams do their work. A collaboration system is a software designed specifically to improve the performance of teams by supporting the distribution and flow of information.

Despite the fact that IT gives support to organizations, sometimes it creates a product that the market does not expect and threatens the leaders of existing markets. This is known as disruptive technology or disruptive innovation. When disruptive innovation emerges, established companies are paralyzed. Instead of defending their low-end products/markets, companies prefer to go to the high-end market and launch new products. Eventually, some disruptive innovation is being welcomed by customers and continuously improves, steals more market and luckily replaces the reigning product.

IT has been materialized globally. Actually, Philippines is one of the countries which is recognized as the ” premiere global destination for IT enabled services such as outsourcing”. Well, we are not really left behind in terms of technology developments. Government Corporation such as Phil. Health Insurance Corporation and SSS use IT to keep track of their client’s personal information as well as to outsource necessary information through data centers in order to cater their clients’ needs. With this, sharing of information and communication throughout the corporation will be easily and efficiently administered. Acquiring customer insights through e-mails can help them come up with better customer service programs. Furthermore, office work such as filing and organizing files can be done in no time (if the employee is not slacking off and tools are used properly) since the computer needs just one click away.

Everything has been transformed from manual process into an automated one. Recently, SSS is chosen to lead a project which will introduce a multi purpose card. It is stated in an article that “Executive Order (EO) 420 which was issued in 2005 mandates all government agencies to adopt the a Unified Multipurpose Identification (UMID) card system, a move which is aimed at saving costs for the government and the public as this eliminates the need to produce multiple ID cards as well as maintaining redundant databases."Well, it wasn’t a bad idea to create a multipurpose ID card since it will make SSS members transaction with various government agencies easier.

Personally, I am grateful to experience the convenience that Information Technology provides. We can now communicate with anyone around the globe by simply text messaging them or sending them an email which gives an almost instantaneous response. The internet has also opened up direct communication from different parts of the world throughthe help of video conferencing. IT not just only brought the world closer together but it also linked the cultural gap through helping people from different cultures to communicate with one another, and allow exchange of views and ideas, thus increasing responsiveness and reducing discrimnation. Probably the best advantage of information technology is the creation of new and interesting jobs. Computer programmers, Systems analyzers, Hardware and Software developers and Web designers are just some of the many new employment opportunities created with the help of IT.

Well, people are impulsive. As long as they can benefit from IT they’ll take advantage of it. Though information technology may have made communication quicker, easier and more convenient, it has also bought along privacy issues. From cell phone signal interceptions to email hacking, people are now worried because their once private information becomes viewable to the public. Furthermore, I think disruptive innovations are neither good nor worse. If the reigning product is being replaced by a new entrant it’s because the market welcomes it. So it’s up to the existing market to come up with a counter-attack strategy to defend its current position. This is the nature of competition. The one who survives will win while the other who gives up loses. Using competitive advantage as one's survival tool will help him stay in the competition. Moreover, I believed that the consequences of Information Technology are the results of our own actions – good or evil. In the end, we are the ones who will take resposibility.



*This blog post is part of the class activities in Datamining headed by Mr. Ramon Duremdes

You found "ME"

If by any chance you’ll meet me at the street or at the mall, notice me eating in the cafeteria or see me inside the lady’s room when I was applying lip-gloss on my lips, can you tell if I’m different from the people surrounding you? Well if there’s something special about me, maybe it’s my name. Kesper rhymes with Casper. It’s funny how people react whenever they hear my name but it’s just a usual thing for me. I’m just a typical teenager who’s enjoying the bliss of my youth. Since I was born under the zodiac sign of Taurus, it’s in my character to like a peaceful and laid back atmosphere. During my free time, you’ll find me sitting outside where I could be reading a book, singing my favorite song or just staring at the blue sky and sorting out my thoughts. Given that, most people find me very quite, behave and timid. Actually, I’m just not expressive. I’m more into creative stuffs like drawings, making scrapbooks, etc. And just like any teen age girls, I study, fall in love, laugh, smile, frown, cry, fail, recover from pain, forget, forgive and get older. I have my own priorities and goals I wanted to reach.


I am in my fourth year at De La Salle-Canlubang and will be graduating in my Business Management degree after two more terms in this trimester. Time passes by so quickly and in no time all of us will be facing the real world, the real challenge. Experiences along with the knowledge I’ve had from my professors, subjects as well as friends will serve as an important tool to help me survive the challenges in the real world. On this college campus, students are surrounded by academics with depths of knowledge, classmates from varieties of background and an opportunity for the two to converge. Just as when I learned to walk and talk as a toddler, in college, as a young adult, I develop the passion and determination I will carry with me for the rest of my life - into the workforce, in the voting booth or even in raising my children.

Datamin, short for datamining, completes the list of my subjects this term. At first, I got the idea that it’s the same as Database for management since the word ‘data’ is enclosed to it. I thought it is more of programming or creating databases. Though there are parts in the lecture which they seem alike, I’m grateful that generating databases is not really the priority of this subject. Well, I think there are more to learn in this subject so we just have to sit, listen and bear to mind Mr, Ramon Duremdes' lectures (http://monlearning. blogspot. com)