Demonstrating the commercial value of data: Mazda Motor Europe

By demonstrating the commercial value of data, the retail financial services arm of Mazda Motor Europe (MME) was able to invest further in developing their data and analytics capabilities.

The challenge

The retail financial services arm of MME knew they had a large amount of data available about their customers for car loans and leases. However, most of this information was not used by the business, or used only in a simple way.

MME wanted to develop further insights to provide better service and products to their customers and grow profitability, but before investing in this area they needed to demonstrate that they had enough data of sufficient quality to deliver practical change and real commercial value.

They engaged BW for a brief proof-of-value project which took the readily-available data and focused on customer renewals.

The project

In working on this project, MME was able to:

• convincingly demonstrate the value in the data and provide confidence in its quality
• recommend and prioritise areas for data and analysis to deliver positive commercial outcomes for both MME and its dealers
• assess the quality of the data and introduce modern data processing tools and environments, showing how it can improve this type of analysis
• develop a propensity model for customer renewals using only the limited data set which compared favourably with the model from their bank partner

Following the successful delivery, MME was able to commit to further investment in data and analytics to drive the performance of their business.

The verdict

BW was selected for this proof-of-value project because of its:

• actuarial approach to analytics with a laser-sharp focus on delivering commercial value
• pragmatic attitude capable of delivering results very quickly with what we have right now
• ability to work comfortably with different types of data
• secure, modern data processing environment and track record of handling sensitive personal data
• experience of the industry and understanding of the challenges of delivering change in the business
• high integrity approach to legal and contractual project elements with speedy conclusions allowing focus on value-add business tasks

We can help you

Our method involves unlocking an organisation’s DNA – getting under its skin, uncovering what makes it unique and helping the employer identify the information that will help the business thrive in a competitive environment. Applying actuarial science is core to this approach, particularly as it pertains to risk analysis.

If you think your team could benefit from our expertise in actuarial science and data analysis, please contact Allan Engelhardt, who will be happy to help. Alternatively, you can learn out more about our services in management decision analytics.