Commonwealth Bank is putting the power of big data into the hands of small and medium businesses by launching a powerful new-to-market business analytics platform.
The world-leading Daily IQ 2.0 platform brings together a suite of data feeds and online tools enabling businesses to not only monitor their performance in real-time and instantly view customer purchasing and demographic trends, but to model future scenarios based on a range of current financial and industry data.
Claire Roberts, Commonwealth Bank Executive General Manager Business Banking SME, said: “This incredibly easy-to-use platform puts enormous power into the hands of business owners and managers to not only help them make important decisions today for their business but to plan for the future.
“The reason the platform is so powerful is because it accesses CommBank’s 1.2 billion monthly transaction records and links to their bank accounts, point-of-sale information and many other relevant data feeds to give deep insights that typically only the biggest businesses have access to.”
Daily IQ 2.0 has already helped a number of businesses make important decisions including identifying opportunities about where to open a new store, which customer segments are most valuable and therefore better targets, and how to better manage cash-flow. It also enables a business to benchmark their current performance against industry peers, and track the spending patterns and demographics of customers in any location.
The platform, provided at zero cost to CommBank customers, combines an analysis of key financial metrics within a business – income and cash-in-hand, sales trends, profitability – with insights into the purchasing behaviours of their own customers including repeat purchases, average spend, age and location. The platform will be rolled out progressively, initially to small to medium sized businesses and then later this year to smaller and micro-sized businesses.
Ms Roberts said: “Through Daily IQ 2.0, our goal is to empower SMEs to take advantage of the scale of CommBank’s transaction information combined with important data feeds and scenario modelling to create a clearer daily picture of the opportunities and risks that exist within their business.
“SMEs are constantly being told about the benefits of big data, but the reality is that many don’t know where to start or have the time and expertise to produce insights that actually impact their day-to-day decision-making.”
The launch of the new platform comes as a survey of SMEs reveals that half use ‘gut-feel’ in decision-making, with only 34 per cent using data and most citing lack of time and associated costs as the major barriers to leveraging big data. Despite this, SMEs indicated that they would derive the greatest benefit from big data in the areas of long-term planning, cost reduction and customer experience and loyalty.
“Our research tells us SMEs want to use data in operational decision making and now they can in a simple and easy way, every day, over their morning coffee or as part of a regular meeting routine. Many small businesses owners are not experts at data analysis, but Daily IQ does that for them and gives them more time to focus on what they do best,” Ms Roberts said.
Daily IQ 2.0 is integrated within the existing functionality of Commonwealth Bank’s online banking portal, NetBank, and business banking platform, CommBiz.
About the research
The findings are based on a quantitative survey of 308 financial decision makers in public and private companies throughout Australia. The study was carried out by Commonwealth Bank between 6 March and 21 March 2017 and includes businesses across small and medium turnover bands.