DARK SIDE OF CUSTOMER ANALYTICSDushyanta Deshmukh

Pritish ZinzuwadiaFrank Anthony

Nithya Sampath

CASE FACTS….

CUSTOMERS

BIG BRANDS

CEO’s , BoD

INSURANCE COMPANY

FACTSLaura Brickman: Regional Manager west coast

operations for IFA.

IFA and shopsense decided to merge 14 months ago.

Health insurer IFA and the grocery chain shopsense have formed a partnership.

Shopsense is known to have the best customer data.

Continued… IFA is best in the industry in evaluating the

external source of data.

Shopsense is worried customer may not like their data given away.

Eventually agreed to give IFA ten years information on shoppers in Southern Michigan.

COO Alan Atkins was worried that customers might stop using the card if they found out that the store was selling their data.

Continued…. CEO Donna Greer agrees that if shopsense sold

customer data it could mean easy money.

IFA finds out information about a particular person and charge the premium accordingly.IFA is doing this with the insurance.

Low premium insurance plan to customers who did not indulge in unhealthy foods.

Households that buy cashews and bananas quarterly are least likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's.

Continued… None of the states that IFA did business had laws

prohibiting data exchange ,ShopSense and insurer were proposing. It was a legal exchange of information.

IFA did not have any interest in revealing its relationship with grocer to the customer.

IFA concentrated on individual customers not on a group of customers.

Access to ShopSense data would give IFA a leg on his competitors.

OPINIONS…..

Is a marketing strategy valid as long as a company can get away with it legally??Shortsighted arrangement with no regard for

customer trust.

Effort to hide the back door arrangement from the customers.

Only concern is legality of proposition.

Corporate Culture Suffers.

How would this “Marketing Strategy” affect the Company?

A shoppers grocery purchase may directly influence his/her availability or insurance price(not in a good way).

Accuracy of the fictional profile of the customer.

Unrelated and uncontemplated use of customer information from customers point of view.

Customers privacy??

Battered Customer Syndrome.

As customer becomes more savvier about analytics they may become less tolerant.

What options do Shop Sense and IFA have?Customers would feel comfortable about data

sharing arrangement, if they knew about it.

IFA and Shop Sense should market the program jointly and any offer should be made through Shop Sense.

Formulate a win- win situation.

Give customer chance to opt in or out.

DARK SIDE…..

Types of Sharing Data:

IntendedDeals and agreementsRules and regulations

UnintendedHackersHuman error

Data Collection on the Web

Source:Web privacy report finds widespread data sharing, 'Web bugs‘; Kathleen Maclay; UC Berkeley News, Press release, 02 Jun 2009

Other Reports “New Profiling Program Raises Privacy Concerns”; Ellen Nakashima and Alec Klein

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 ; Washington Post Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE)

“Feeling Betrayed, Facebook Users Force Site to Honor Their Privacy”; Ellen Nakashima, November 30, 2007; Page A01; Washington Post

“N.J. accidentally reveals personal data of 28K unemployed residents”, Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau; May 18, 2009, 8:58 PM; retrieved from nj.com

“Is your Palm Pre spying on you?”; Jared Newman, Aug 14, 2009, Pcworld; retrieved from msnbc.com Unproven claim

ANY QUESTIONS???