SYSTEM, METHOD, AND ANALYTICS
FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING
CUSTOMIZED PROMOTIONS FOR THE
CONSUMERS
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is related to the following: U,S, Patent
Application No. 11/612,834, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on December 19, 2006; U.S. Patent Application No. 11/612,843, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on December 19, 2006; India Patent Application No. 2185/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on September 27, 2007; India Patent Application No. 2186/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on September 27, 2007; India Patent Application No, 3085/CHE/2007, entitled "Method and System for Encoding Promotional Data on a Writable Card", filed on December 24, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3088/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions", filed on December 24, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3105/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Monitoring Consumer Behavior and Shopping Pattern", filed on December 26, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3106/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions", filed on December 26, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3163/CHE/2008, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions to the Consumer", filed on December 17, 2008; and India Patent Application No. 3164/CHE/2008, entitled "System and Method for Providing Personalized Promotions at the Point of Sale", filed on December 17, 2008; each of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND
[0002] The invention relates generally to promotion management and,
more particularly, to a technique and an analytics framework for managing customized promotions for consumers.
[0003] Businesses frequently use marketing or promotional offers to
attract customers to purchase their goods or services with the objective of increasing sales and revenue. These promotional offers may take many forms, such as a discount on the purchase of a product or service, a reduced interest rate on credit card transactions, a cash-back offer on a purchase, a buy-one-get-one-free offer, redeemable loyalty points, and so forth. Current techniques to offer promotional schemes include operating pre-determined group promotions or product promotions or operating a more effective individual customized or tailor-made promotions.
[0004] The most crucial aspect of providing such customized promotions
is to know which customer/consumer wants what product and at what time. Understanding of consumer purchase behavior has been another challenge. Business entities have used tradhional methods like extensive market research in order to gauge the taste and preferences of their customers. However, in addition to being an expensive method, a typical market research runs the risk of having a poor response and various other information gaps. Since the design of promotions depends on this potentially flawed research, it may lack effectiveness. Additionally, there is typically a time lag between the market research and promotion design and delivery.
[0005] With advancements in technology, business entities are trying to
capture customer insights on-line via various data capturing and crunching mechanism and analytics engine. Models on purchase behavior are developed based on insight gained from transaction history. The promotions are then designed and customized for the consumers based on these models. For

example, potential consumers are identified for certain marketing or promotional offers via back end analytics processes based on spending pattern, preferences, demographics and so forth.
[0006] These customized marketing or promotional offers along with
various other marketing or promotional offers are then sent out to the potential consumers in a variety of ways. For example, a promotional offer may be provided to a potential customer by placing a coupon in a newspaper purchased by the potential customer, in a postcard mailed to a potential customer, in an e-mail sent to a customer's computer, and so forth. However, the responsibility lies with the customer to retain and utilize these promotional offers. These promotions are seldom used and are ineffective since the location and timing of the consumer receiving the promotion is different from the place where it can be used (e.g. the store). Moreover, the promotional offers that are given to customers in the transaction oriented retail/retail financial sector are one-sided communication. Thus the business entities design the promotions they want to offer to the customers through these analytics engine or otherwise. But most of these offers are decided by the offering entity and does not involve customer choice or decision. In other words, the customized promotions are not effectively communicated to the consumer on a regular basis and it is difficult to float or operate such promotional schemes with the existing setup.
[0007] There exist various communication modules as stand-alone
applications that are programmed to send across messages to individual users based on the input provided. For example, some of the transaction based banking activhies employs such communication modules for informing the consumer status/completion of the activity. However, such communicafion modules do not exist or are not integrated with the promotion or loyalty management systems so as to deliver the promofion offers to the consumers or to touch base with the consumers in real time.

[0008] Current computer-implemented promotion management
techniques help companies to more effectively understand and communicate with its individual customers. For example, customer relationship management (CRM) systems are implemented to support the marketing activities of a company, including modeling customer behavior, personalizing marketing activhies directed at customers, and communicating with customers. However, the current systems fail to provide all the aspects and functionalities required for operating customized promotion schemes in an integrated manner. For example, the current systems are hmited in their analytics and decision-making capabilities. Additionally, they lack the capability to analyze and use the large repository of transaction data that organizations have collected. Moreover, the output of the customer centric analytics has not been employed in a defined follow through to conduct well-planned campaigns. All these things are currently being carried out in ad-hoc fashion. In short, the above slated problems have not been addressed in its entirety or have been addressed in disparate manner with disparate systems and processes.
[0009] It is therefore desirable to provide an efficient, cost-effective, and
integrated framework to run and manage customized promotion campaigns so as to increase the sales and revenue without interfering with the existing infrastructure and processes. It is desirable to efficiently and effectively capture consumer behavior and preferences, translate these preferences into attractive customized promotions, and communicate the generated promotions to the consumers in a manner easily understandable by them and in a medium convenient for them when implementing a loyalty solution.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
[0010] Briefly, in accordance with one aspect of the technique, a method
is provided for managing a promotional campaign. The method provides for accessing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers from one or more database, generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying

one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information, and driving the promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight. Systems and computer programs that afford such functionality may be provided by the present technique.
[0011] In accordance with another aspect of the technique, a system is
provided for managing a promotional campaign. The system includes a processor configured to access consumer related information of a plurality of consumers from one or more database, to generate an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information, and to drive the promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight.
[0012] In accordance with a further aspect of the technique, a retail
analytics framework (RAF) system is provided. The retail analytics framework (RAF) system includes a customer relationship management (CRM) system for acquiring and managing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers, a reporting, analytics and decision (RAD) system for generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information, and a campaign management (CM) system for driving a promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight.
[0013] In accordance with an additional aspect of the technique, a
method is provided for adapting a merchandise system for managing a promotional campaign. The method provides for installing retail analytics framework (RAF) system in the merchandise system. The RAF system comprising a customer relationship management (CRM) system for acquiring and managing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers, a

reporting, analytics and decision (RAD) system for generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information, and a campaign management (CM) system for driving a promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight. Here again, systems and computer programs affording such functionality may be provided by the present technique.
DRAWINGS
[0014] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present
invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
[0015] FIG, 1 depicts a retail analytics framework (RAF) and a system
comprising the framework in accordance with aspects of the present technique;
[0016] FIG. 2 is a schematic of a general-purpose computer system in
which aspects of the RAF of FIG. 1 may be practiced; and
[0017] FIG. 3 is a flowchart depicting a process for managing the
promotional campaign via the RAF system of FIG. 1 in accordance with aspects of the present technique
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0018] The present techniques are generally directed to an integrated
framework for operating and managing customized promotions for consumers. Such framework may be useful in a variety of contexts, such as retail outlets, banking companies, airlines industries, hotel industries, and others. Additionally, such a framework may be implemented in a variety of ways, such as a stand-alone product, a web-based service, a web-based product, and so forth. Though the present discussion provides examples in context of retail

outlets and as a stand-alone product, the application and implementation of these techniques in other contexts and manners is well within the scope of the invention.
[0019] Referring now to FIG. I, a retail analytics framework (RAF)
system 10 is depicted in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The RAF system 10 is adapted to implement an integrated retail analytics framework (RAF) 12 for operating and managing promotional campaigns. The RAF system 10 includes a customer relationship management (CRM) system 14, a reporting, analytics and decision (RAD) system 16, and a campaign management (CM) system 18. The three systems 14, 16, and 18 interact with each other to operate and manage promotional campaigns for consumers, as will be discussed in greater detail below.
[0020] The CRM system 14 maintains respective consumer accounts of
the plurality of consumers in a CRM database 20. In particular, the CRM system 14 is used for acquiring new consumers, managing transaction or loyalty card details, managing account llfecycle and other such functions. The CRM system 14 therefore acquires and manages consumer related information of a plurality of consumers. The consumer related information may include, but is not limited to, transaction history, promotion history, financial information, personal information, contact infonnation, membership details, or preference details of the respective consumer.
[0021] The RAD system 16 generates an insight with respect to the
consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information. The RAD system 16 therefore helps the user to apply various analytics and reporting algorithms to the transactions, demographics, financial, and other types of data. The RAD system 16 accesses consumer related data from the CRM system 14 in general and CRM database 20 in particular. Additionally, the RAD system 16 may access transaction data from the transaction database 22 located on a merchandiser

server 24. It should be noted that the RAD system 16 may also access product information such as SKU (stock keeping units), product categories, prices of the products, pre-defined promotions on the products offered by manufacturer or distributor, and so forth from a product database 23 located on the merchandiser server 24. In certain embodiments, the RAD system 16 may perform analysis on each consumer's behavior based on hisA\er past transaction data and/or promotion history, and other related data via an analytics engine to generate an insight about that consumer.
[0022] The output of the RAD system 16 may be in terms of reports,
models, and decision-making scenarios. These outputs may be presented to the user so as to provide an insight related to consumer's transaction pattern, shopping pattern, visit pattern, spending pattern and so forth. These outputs may also provide business units or merchandisers specific insights based on analysis and reporting. Business units or merchandiser related insights may include comparison between stores, comparison between product categories, comparison between sales performance of a store in different times (time series analysis of sales), and so forth. The RAD system 16 includes various sub-systems or modules so as to provide insight on the consumer. For example, the RAD system 16 may include an exploratory data analysis (EDA) module 26 that generates various kinds of reports on the consumer for the user. Additionally, the RAD system 16 may include a model builder module 28 that helps the user to build various types of models based on the consumer related information. Such models may include propensity models, profitability models, forecasting models, product related models (e.g., product associations based on market basket analysis), and so forth, The RAD system 16 may also include a scenario builder module 30 that helps the user to simulate various scenarios so as to enable them or the RAD system 16 to make critical decisions.
[0023] The CM system 18 is responsible for driving a promotional
campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the insight generated by the RAD system 16. The CM system 18 helps the user to design, run,

monitor, and analyze specific campaigns targeted to customers. The CM system 16 includes various sub-systems or modules to drive the promotional campaign, A design module 32 designs or helps the user to design the promotional campaign by defining the promotions and associated campaign parameters. The associated campaign parameters may include a time period of promotion, a target number of promotion, and so forth. In certain embodiments, the promotions may be customized for each consumer based on consumer's behavior and interest established through advanced analytics. The promotions may include a simple discount offer, a cash back offer, combination of two or more products based discount offer, a credit card APR discount, a reward point based promotion, a loyalty point based promotion and so forth.
[0024] A delivery module 34 then delivers the one or more promotions
to the plurality of consumers through various delivery channels or mediums 36, The delivery charmels or mediums 36 may include writing the promotions on a transaction/loyalty card of the consumer, sending electronic promotional messages or mails, displaying the promotions at kiosks, printing the promotions on generated bills at the transaction terminal, and so forth. Additionally, the CM system 18 may include a monitor module 38 for monitoring consumer response to the delivered promotions. The user may keep track of the campaign as to how many responses have been registered, what volume have been clocked and so forth through the monitor module 38. Further, the CM system 18 may include an analyze module 40 to determine an impact of the promotional campaign against pre-defined matrices. For example, the analyze module 40 may help the user to compute specific campaign metrics with respect to the financial and other targets or metrics. In certain embodiments, the impact may be computed by deteraiining response of the plurality of consumers atid corresponding sales during the period of the promotional campaign
[0025] It should be noted that the various systems of the integrated RAF
framework 12 such as the CRM system 14, the RAD system 16, and the CM system 18 are not entirely dependent on each other. A predefined promotional

campaign may be provided to the CM system 18 through external inputs for delivery, monitoring and subsequent analysis. Alternatively, the promotional campaign may be designed based on the insight generated via the RAD system 16 for delivery, monitoring and subsequent analysis. Further, the insight may be generated through the RAD system 16 and the promotional campaign may be run through traditional techniques such as sending mailers.
[0026] The above discussed RAF framework 12 and system 10 may be
implemented through any general-purpose computer system. Referring now to FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of a general-purpose computer system 42 is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The computer system 42 is configured to manage a promotion campaign through advanced analytics, decision-making, and campaign management modules/algorithms discussed above. These modules may be present separately as a special purpose circuitry or may be present as a part of the computer. The computer system 42 generally includes a processor 44, a memory 46, and input^output devices 48 connected via a data pathway (e.g., buses) 50.
f0027] The processor 44 accepts instructions and data fi-om the memory
46 and performs various data processing functions of the system, such as analyzing consumer related data, transaction data, and/or product data, generating insights through reports, scenarios, and/or models, driving promotional campaign, and so forth. The processor 44 may drive the promotional campaign by designing the promotional campaigns, monitoring consumer response to the promotional campaign, and analyzing monitored responses to determine impact of the promotional campaign against pre-defined matrices. The processor 44 includes an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logical operations, and a control unit that extracts instructions from memory 46 and decodes and executes them, calling on the ALU when necessary. The memory 46 stores a variety of data computed by the various data processing tunctions of the system 42. The data may include, for example, quantitative and qualitative data, such as consumer demographics,

consumer past transaction data, consumer past promotion history, consumer preferences and so forth. The memory 46 generally includes a random-access memory (RAM) and a read-only memory (ROM); however, there may be other types of memory such as programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) and electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). Also, the memory 46 preferably contains an operating system, which executes on the processor 44, The operating system performs basic tasks that include recognizing input, sending output to output devices, keeping track of files and directories and controlling various peripheral devices. The information in the memory 46 might be conveyed to a human user through the input/output devices 48, the data pathway 50, or in some other suitable manner.
[0028] The input/output devices 48 may further include a keyboard 52
and a mouse 54 that a user can use to enter data and instructions into the computer system 42. AdditionaUy, a display 56 may be used to allow a user to see what the computer has accomplished and other available information. Other output devices may include a printer that enables the user to print any data for his reference. The computer system 42 may fiirther include a communication port 58 such as a telephone, cable or wireless modem or a network card such as an Ethernet adapter, local area network (LAN) adapter, integrated services digital network (ISDN) adapter, or Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) adapter, that enables the computer system 42 to access other computers and resources (e.g., transaction/product database residing at a merchandiser sever, transaction terminals, kiosks, and so forth) on a network such as a LAN or a wide area network (WAN). The computer system 42 may also include a mass storage device 60 to allow the computer system 42 to retain large amounts of data permanently. The mass storage device may include all types of disk drives such as floppy disks, hard disks and optical disks, as well as tape drives that can read and write data onto a tape that could include digital audio tapes (DAT), digital linear tapes (DLT), or other magnetically coded media. The above-described

computer system 42 may take the form of a hand-held digital computer, persona! digital assistant computer, notebook computer, personal computer, workstation, mini-computer, mainframe computer or supercomputer.
[0029] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, variety of
techniques may be employed to run and manage a promotional campaign such as a customized promotional campaign, For example, the exemplary computer system 42 may acquire or access product data, consumer data, and associated transacdon data, analyze the accessed data to capmre statistical pattern thereby generating an insight on consumer behavior, and design and deliver promotions based on the generated insight by the techniques discussed herein. In particular, as will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, control logic and/or automated routines for performing the techniques and steps described herein may be implemented by the computer system 42, either by hardware, software, or combinadons of hardware and software. For example, suitable code may be accessed and executed by the processor 44 to perform some or all of the techniques described herein. Similarly application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) configured to perform some or all of the techniques described herein may be included in the processor 44.
[0030] For example, referring now to FIG. 3, exemplary control logic 62
for operating and managing the promotional campaign via RAF system 10 such as computer system 42 is depicted via a flowchart in accordance with aspects of the present technique. As illustrated in the flowchart, exemplary control logic 62 includes the steps of accessing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers from one or more database at step 64, generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analydcs, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information at step 66, and driving the promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight at step 68.

[0031] The control logic 62 fijrther includes the step of acquiring and
managing consumer details along with the respective consumer related information. Further as noted above, the analytics algorithm may include exploratory data analysis algorithm for generating one or more reports on the consumer, the modeling algorithm may generate one or more models based on the consumer related infonnation, and the simulation algorithm may generate one or more decision-making scenarios. The insight therefore may take the form of a report, a model, and/or a decision-making scenario.
[0032] Additionally, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art,
driving the promotional campaign at step 68 may include the steps of designing the promotional campaign by defining the promotions and associated parameters, delivering the generated promotional campaign to consumers, monitoring consumer response to the promotional campaign, and/or analyzing impact of the promotional campaign against pre-defined matrices.
[0033] The retail analytics framework and the system comprising the
framework, described in the various embodiments discussed above, may be employed by the merchandisers to automate and enhance their decision-making capability while running the promotional campaign. The framework helps build the customer relationship and loyalty management processes in the business. The capability of the framework encompasses building a customer centric decision-making system built around the transaction, demographics, financial, and other sources of information. The framework and the system are built with the methods prescribed within the system and augmented by the analytics methods designed around the data in the relevant areas. The compact and integrated framework provides the user or merchandiser with powerful consumer insight, better campaign management efficiency, advanced pluggable analytics, and efficient and effective control over the processes.
[0034] Additionally, the framework and associated system may be rolled
out as a product or service depending on the requirement of the intended user.

As a product, the framework may be employed as a stand-alone product or a web-based product. It should be noted that the framework may be integrated to the existing technology stack of the intended user, For example, in certain embodiments, a merchandise system may be adapted to manage a promotional campaign by installing retail analytics framework (RAF) framework in the merchandise system. Such installation may be performed at the merchandiser site through portable memory device (e.g., optical disk) or remotely through Internet. The product may be deployed or installed in parts or as a whole depending on the existing infrastructure. Thus, separate modules or sub-systems of the complete framework may be installed separately depending on the need of the user. Alternatively, as a service, the framework may be employed as a web based service for the intended user.
[0035] While only certain features of the invention have been illustrated
and described herein, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.

We claim:
1. A method of managing a promotional campaign, the method
comprising:
accessing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers from one or more database;
generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information; and
driving the promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the insight comprises a report, a model, a decision-making scenario, or a combination thereof.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the analytics algorithm comprises exploratory data analysis algorithm for generating one or more reports on the consumer, wherein the modeling algorithm generates one or more models based on the consumer related information, and wherein the simulation algorithm generates one or more decision-making scenarios.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein driving the promotional campaign comprises designing the promotional campaign by defining the promotions and associated parameters, monitoring consumer response to the promotional campaign, and analyzing an impact of the promotional campaign against pre-defined matrices.
5. A retail analytics framework (RAF) system, comprising:
a customer relationship management (CRM) system for acquiring and managing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers;

a reporting, analytics and decision (RAD) system for generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information; and
a campaign management (CM) systena for driving a promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers based on the generated insight.
6. The RAF system of claim 5, wherein the CRM system is configured to maintain respective consumer accounts of the plurality of consumers in a CRM database.
7. The RAF system of claim 5, wherein the RAD system is further configured to access at least a transaction data fi"om a transaction database, a product information from a product database, or a combination thereof
8. The RAF system of claim 5, wherein the RAD system further comprises:
an exploratory data analysis (EDA) module configured to generate one or more reports on the consumer;
a model builder module configured to generate one or more models based on the consumer related information; and
a scenario builder module configured to simulate various scenarios to enable RAD system to make critical decisions.
9. The RAF system of claim 5, wherein the CM system drives a
promotional campaign by designing, delivering, monitoring and analyzing the
promotional campaign, the CM system further comprises:
a design module configured to design the promotional campaign by defining the promotions and associated parameters;
a delivery module configured to deliver one or more promotions to the plurality of consumers;

a monitor module configured to monitor consumer response to the promotional campaign; and
an analyze module configured to determine impact of the promotional campaign against pre-defined matrices.
10. A method for adapting a merchandise system for managing a promotional campaign, the method comprising:
installing retail analytics framework (RAF) system in the merchandise system, the RAF system comprising a customer relationship management (CRM) system for acquiring and managing consumer related information of a plurality of consumers, a reporting, analytics and decision (RAD) system for generating an insight with respect to the consumer by applying one or more of a plurality of analytics, modeling, and simulation algorithms to the consumer related information, and a campaign management (CM) system for driving a promotional campaign targeted to the plurality of consumers hased on the generated insight.