Drilling Down

For more than a century, oil has been the engine of growth for a society that delivers an unprecedented standard of living to many. We now take for granted that economic growth is good, necessary, and even inevitable, but also feel a sense of unease about the simultaneous growth of complexity in the processes and institutions that generate and manage that growth. As societies grow more complex through the bounty of cheap energy, they also confront problems that seem to increase in number and severity. In this era of fossil fuels, cheap energy and increasing complexity have been in a mutually-reinforcing spiral. The more energy we have and the more problems our societies confront, the more we grow complex and require still more energy. How did our demand for energy, our technological prowess, the resulting need for complex problem solving, and the end of easy oil conspire to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill increasingly likely, if not inevitable? This book explains the real causal factors leading up to the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, a disaster from which it will take decades to recover.

I spend a lot of time in marketing-oriented discussion lists. If you do, you probably also sense the incredible frustration of people who keep asking about using their customer data to retain customers and increase profits. Everybody knows they should be doing it, but can't find out how to do it. Consultants and agencies make this process sound like some kind of "black magic", something you can't possibly do yourself. I disagree. I think the average business owner can do a perfectly decent job creating profiles and using them to retain customers and drive profits. Thus the book. The examples provided are Internet specific, but the methods can be used in any business where customer data is available. This book is about the down-and-dirty, nitty-gritty art of taking chunks of data generated by your customers and making sense of it, getting it to speak to you, creating insight into what types of marketing or general business actions you can take to make your business more profitable. We'll be talking about "action-oriented" ideas you can generate on your own to drive sales and profits, ideas that will reveal themselves by analyzing your own customer data, using only a spreadsheet. We have all heard how important it is to collect customer data, to "know" your customer. What I don't hear much about is what exactly you DO with all that data once you have collected it. How is it used? What exactly is Drilling Down into the data supposed to tell me, and what am I looking for when I get there? For that matter, what data should I be collecting and how will I use it when I have it? And how much is this process going to cost me? The following list outlines what you will learn and be able to do after reading the Drilling Down book: --What data is important to collect about a customer and what data is not --How to create action-oriented customer profiles with an Excel spreadsheet --How to use these profiles to plan marketing promotions --How to use these profiles to define the future value of your customers --How to use these profiles to measure the general health of your business --How to use these profiles to encourage customers to do what you want them to --How to predict when a customer is about to defect and leave you --How to increase your profits while decreasing your marketing costs --How to design high ROI (Return on Investment) marketing promotions How to blow away investors with predictions of the future profitability of your business Table of Contents Chapter 1: What's a Customer Profile? Chapter 2: Data-Driven Marketing - Customer Retention Basics Chapter 3: The Language of Data, The Science of Profit Chapter 4: Interactivity Changes the Rules of the Game Chapter 5: How to Build a Customer Profiling Spreadsheet Chapter 6: How to Profile (Score) Your Customers Chapter 7: Marketing Using Customer Scores - Basic Approach Chapter 8: Using Customer Characteristics and Multiple Scores Chapter 9: Watching Scores over Time - Customer LifeCycles Chapter 10: Customer Scoring Grids - Profiling on Steroids Chapter 11: Calculating and Using LifeTime Value in Promotions Chapter 12: Turning Profiles into Profits - the Staging Area Chapter 13: Turning Profiles into Profits - the Financial Model Chapter 14: Turning Profiles into Profits - Financial Tweaks Chapter 15: Measuring Success in Best Customer Promotions Chapter 16: Some Final Thoughts Seasonal Adjustments to Marketing Promotions Don't Fight Customer Behavior CRM Software and Customer Scoring Data-Driven Marketing Program Descriptions There's more! Automate the basic customer scoring process on large groups of customers. Use the software included free with this edition! Windows OS and MS Access and Excel required to run the software.

This book shows you how to attain consistency, profitability, and scalability in your construction or trade business. As the cofounder of the industry-leading coaching practice Small Business Growth Partners, Chris has helped develop a proven system for unlocking organizational growth. Whether you've been struggling with personnel issues, marketing, sales, processes, or anything in between, this book will help you transform your pain points into strengths.

A self-paced visual guide to learning Crystal Reports, this workbook for beginners has easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions and screen shots to show users how to complete the design technique.

The final edition of the incomparable data warehousing and business intelligence reference, updated and expanded The Kimball Group Reader, Remastered Collection is the essential reference for data warehouse and business intelligence design, packed with best practices, design tips, and valuable insight from industry pioneer Ralph Kimball and the Kimball Group. This Remastered Collection represents decades of expert advice and mentoring in data warehousing and business intelligence, and is the final work to be published by the Kimball Group. Organized for quick navigation and easy reference, this book contains nearly 20 years of experience on more than 300 topics, all fully up-to-date and expanded with 65 new articles. The discussion covers the complete data warehouse/business intelligence lifecycle, including project planning, requirements gathering, system architecture, dimensional modeling, ETL, and business intelligence analytics, with each group of articles prefaced by original commentaries explaining their role in the overall Kimball Group methodology. Data warehousing/business intelligence industry's current multi-billion dollar value is due in no small part to the contributions of Ralph Kimball and the Kimball Group. Their publications are the standards on which the industry is built, and nearly all data warehouse hardware and software vendors have adopted their methods in one form or another. This book is a compendium of Kimball Group expertise, and an essential reference for anyone in the field. Learn data warehousing and business intelligence from the field's pioneers Get up to date on best practices and essential design tips Gain valuable knowledge on every stage of the project lifecycle Dig into the Kimball Group methodology with hands-on guidance Ralph Kimball and the Kimball Group have continued to refine their methods and techniques based on thousands of hours of consulting and training. This Remastered Collection of The Kimball Group Reader represents their final body of knowledge, and is nothing less than a vital reference for anyone involved in the field.

Discover the utility of your organization’s data with Microsoft Power BI In Beginning Power BI for Business Users: Learning to Turn Data into Insights, accomplished data professional and business intelligence expert Paul Fuller delivers an intuitive and accessible handbook for professionals seeking to use Microsoft’s Power BI to access, analyze, understand, report, and act on the data available to their organizations. In the book, you’ll discover Power BI’s robust feature set, learn to ingest and model data, visualize and report on that data, and even use the DAX scripting language to unlock still more utility from Microsoft’s popular program. Beginning with general principles geared to readers with no or little experience with reporting or data analytics tools, the author walks you through how to manipulate common, publicly available data sources—including Excel files and relational databases. You’ll also learn to: Use the included and tested sample code to work through the helpful examples included by the author Conduct data orchestration and visualization to better understand and gain insights from your data An essential resource for business analysts and Excel power users reaching the limits of that program’s capabilities, Beginning Power BI for Business Users will also benefit data analysts who seek to prepare reports for their organizations using Microsoft’s flexible and intuitive software.

Learn the foundations of business intelligence, sector trade-offs, organizational structures, and technology stacks while mastering coursework, certifications, and interview success strategies Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Key Features Identify promising job opportunities and ideal entry point into BI Build, design, implement, and maintain BI systems successfully Ace your BI interview with author's expert guidance on certifications, trainings, and courses Book DescriptionNavigating the challenging path of a business intelligence career requires you to consider your expertise, interests, and skills. Business Intelligence Career Master Plan explores key skills like stacks, coursework, certifications, and interview advice, enabling you to make informed decisions about your BI journey. You’ll start by assessing the different roles in BI and matching your skills and career with the tech stack. You’ll then learn to build taxonomy and a data story using visualization types. Additionally, you’ll explore the fundamentals of programming, frontend development, backend development, software development lifecycle, and project management, giving you a broad view of the end-to-end BI process. With the help of the author’s expert advice, you’ll be able to identify what subjects and areas of study are crucial and would add significant value to your skill set. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped to make an informed decision on which of the myriad paths to choose in your business intelligence journey based on your skill set and interests.What you will learn Understand BI roles, roadmap, and technology stack Accelerate your career and land your first job in the BI industry Build the taxonomy of various data sources for your organization Use the AdventureWorks database and PowerBI to build a robust data model Create compelling data stories using data visualization Automate, templatize, standardize, and monitor systems for productivity Who this book is for This book is for BI developers and business analysts who are passionate about data and are looking to advance their proficiency and career in business intelligence. While foundational knowledge of tools like Microsoft Excel is required, having a working knowledge of SQL, Python, Tableau, and major cloud providers such as AWS or GCP will be beneficial.

Take business intelligence delivery to a new level that is interactive, engaging, even fun, all while driving commercial success through sound decision making. Do this through the power of visualization using this updated edition covering new features and added support for visualization in Excel 2016, and describing the latest developments in Get & Transform and DAX. The example data set has also been updated to demonstrate all that Microsoft's self-service business intelligence suite is now capable of. High Impact Data Visualization in Excel with Power View, 3D Maps, Get & Transform and Power BI, 2nd Edition helps in harnessing the power of Microsoft’s flagship, self-service business intelligence suite to deliver compelling and interactive insight with remarkable ease. Learn the essential techniques needed to enhance the look and feel of reports and dashboards so that you can seize your audience’s attention and provide them with clear and accurate information. Also learn to integrate data from a variety of sources and create coherent data models displaying clear metrics and attributes. Power View is Microsoft's ground-breaking tool for ad-hoc data visualization and analysis. It's designed to produce elegant and visually arresting output. It's also built to enhance user experience through polished interactivity. Power Map is a similarly powerful mechanism for analyzing data across geographic and political units. Get & Transform lets you load, shape and streamline data from multiple sources. Power Pivot can extend and develop data into a dynamic model. Power BI allows you to share your findings with colleagues, and present your insights to clients. High Impact Data Visualization in Excel with Power View, 3D Maps, Get & Transform and Power BI, 2nd Edition helps you master this suite of powerful tools from Microsoft. You'll learn to identify data sources, and to save time by preparing your underlying data correctly. You'll also learn to deliver your powerful visualizations and analyses through the cloud to PCs, tablets and smartphones. Simple techniques take raw data and convert it into information. Slicing and dicing metrics delivers interactive insight. Visually arresting output grabs and focuses attention on key indicators. What You Will Learn Produce designer output that will astound your bosses and peers. Drive business intelligence from Excel using BI in the Cloud. Gather source data from corporate and public sources. Integrate charts, maps, and tables to deliver visually stunning information. Discover new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before. Adapt delivery to mobile devices. Outshine competing products and enhance existing skills. Who This Book Is For Any Power BI Desktop, Excel or SharePoint user. Business Intelligence developers, power users, IT managers, finance experts, and more can use this book to outshine the competition by producing high-impact business intelligence reporting on a variety of devices from a variety of sources.