How does Santa use Big Data?

As we all know, Santa is very busy this time of the year as Christmas is fast approaching!
We sometimes take what jolly old Saint Nick does for granted and how much work it takes to visit all of those houses in one night.

BUT, what if Santa used location and Big Data to make the process more efficient?

What if Santa could:

• Determine where changes have occurred since last year?

A lot can happen in a year, especially in Canada.  10,000 postal codes were added last year and the latest census showed significant variety of changes happened within Canada.

If Santa used his list, location and neighbourhood level data - he could do the following:

• Identify the new addresses and postal codes that were added since last December
• Understand the age of neighbourhoods – who has a new roof vs. an old roof so he can safely land his sleigh
• Use neighbourhood projections for population changes to efficiently plan for future Christmas’ that have yet to come
  
• Double check who is on the naughty/nice list?

Santa after making his list and checking it twice to find out who is naughty or nice now has a problem before he comes to town! Santa with his large list of names and addresses can now:

• Confirm names with addresses and institute elf approved data quality standards
• Identify business addresses that he doesn’t need to visit because everyone is at home nestled snug in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads
  

• Ensure the best flight path?

“Santa Claus is coming to town!”  “Santa Claus is coming to town!”  “Santa…Claus….is coming to…”
Wait – can Santa optimize his route to town?

Santa has decided to upgrade his sleigh navigation system to include address points so that he can see everybody and check them off his list as he delivers his parcels and goodies.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at DMTI Spatial!

Webinar: Uncovering the Value of your Database

It’s not too late to register for the UNCOVERING THE VALUE OF YOUR DATABASE WEBINAR! Thursday, December 19th, 2013 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM Eastern   In joining our webinar you will see how Union Gas was able to increase uptake of their marketing programs by 400% and how a leading Telco was able to increase their win rates to 40%. You will learn how to mine your database and turn it into a ‘DIAMOND’ that will increase your marketing ROI by being able to: Find new insights about your customers to increase campaign effectiveness Find new prospects that are alike your best customers Avoid targeting the wrong customer Understand why Proximity matters Consolidate your customers into a single, manageable view and increase your up-sell & cross-sell opportunities In support of the Make-A-Wish® foundation we would like to spread the holiday joy by donating $10 for every webinar attendee. FROM

The Importance of Demographics

DMTI has just announced a partnership with Environics Analytics, premier marketing services and data analytics company in Canada, to provide their leading demographic content within Location Hub^® and Location Hub Portal.

The importance of demographics cannot be understated or ignored. Often, this information is most valuable to a marketer in the development of messaging and collateral that best suits the customer’s tastes and increases their return on investment. However, demographic information also provides data important to segmentation and analysis in defining trade areas, site selection and risk analysis.

Combining demographic information with other data such as business listing information (such as SIC codes, NAICS codes, contact information, sales volumes and mailing address) and consumer details (name & phone number of the resident) allows a user to access a growing ecosystem of content. When this ecosystem of content is leveraged using the precise location information natively provided by DMTI, any business is provided a single, complete view of the customer that can be utilized across their entire organization.

Take risk analysis as an example. Every organization will have an acceptable threshold for risk and this can be calculated using factors pertinent to their business. When assessing the risk in your book of business, factors such as the probability to default, the concentration of customers in the same area and the proximity to a peril or previous natural disaster in the region (such as a flood or fire) can all be taken into account. Relating these factors to one another using demographic, business and personal information, a more accurate exposure model can now be developed.

Location, demographics and personal information are continually proving invaluable to increasing response rates to marketing campaigns, but don’t let marketers reap all the rewards. DMTI Spatial can work with you to ensure that your organization can make use of all the rich content available in the ecosystem provided at the address level to gain unprecedented insights. 

Environics content nowavailable in Location Hub Portal

Take a look at the content for yourself within Location Hub Portal. All the information is provided in an easy to use UI that allows for the content you need to be searched, selected and appended to your file. Derive insights to increase campaign effectiveness, create more accurate risk or exposure models or gain more information on your current customer base to influence future strategy.

Precise location and an ecosystem of content. Let DMTI Spatial work with you to let you uncover possibilities just a few days ago seemed unthinkable.

Learn more about DMTI Spatial's Ecosystem >>

Start using Location Hub Portal right with our free trial >>

How do you measure your risk?

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More businesses are realizing the value of measuring risk using location. An example from the insurance industry of this is the accumulation of risk.

“An accumulation of risk occurs when a portfolio of business contains a concentration of risks that might give rise to exceptionally large losses from a single event. Such an accumulation might occur by location (property insurance) or occupation (employers’ liability insurance), for example.”

Accumulation risk is measured in response to or plan in advance of natural catastrophes and earthquakes.

In Canada, risk is measured using both generic and specialized regions.  Generic regions include postal code boundaries  and municipalities.  Specialized regions such as those for earthquakes include Catastrophe Risk Evaluating and Standardizing Target Accumulations (CRESTA) zones to determine the accumulation of risk.

As per the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Canadian reinsurers, insurers and regulators use CRESTA zones as the minimum standard for the capture of data and first level calculation of probable maximum loss (PML).  PML evaluations can influence underwriting decisions, and the amount of reinsurance allowed on a risk can be predicated on the PML valuation.

The original CRESTA zones were established in 1981 and introduced in Canada in 1986.  They have been recently re-worked globally and have been re-launched to the market for 2012/2013.

Three of Canada’s four largest cities are located in regions of high to moderate risk of earthquake damage – Vancouver (pictured right), Montreal, and Ottawa. Additional vulnerable communities include Victoria and Quebec City.

CRESTA zones can also be mapped against FSA (first three digits of the postal code) to determine the percentage (%) overlap of a CRESTA zone to help determine affected land area.

Users can interact with the CRESTA boundaries in the following ways:

• Obtain mapping data and tables to perform their own internal analytics;
• Take their portfolio (book of business) and assign the CRESTA value (e.g., Extreme, Very Low) that identifies the risk of an earthquake to occur in a specific area/region

An infographic for the Vancouver area has been created that summarizes the number of addresses and businesses and how they might be impacted here.

Contributed by @RobertSzyngiel

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