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Zumetrics |
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June 24, 2013 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Providing SaaS Cloud-Based Data Collection and Reporting Technology, Zumetrics is helping Retailers and Brand Owners Analyze Product-Level eCommerce Data and Make Smarter Category Management Decisions |
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Zumetrics is a cloud-based
market intelligence platform that automatically collects and analyzes
product-level ecommerce data for retailers and brand owners to make smarter
category management decisions.
President
As a strategic leader, Mr. Izurieta has an accomplished track record of building and growing technology businesses. Focused on understanding consumer needs and identifying technology breakthroughs needed to deliver market-ready solutions, Mr. Izurieta has been able to continuously drive innovation through clear vision and thought leadership.
Mr. Izurieta joined Intersections in 2008 where he held the positions of Vice President of Partnership Development and as General Manager of Net Enforcers before assuming his current role. Prior to Intersections, Mr. Izurieta was Director of Business Innovations with Capital One and served as the President, COO and co-founder of MUTUALdecisions, a provider of predictive academic models for mutual fund investors. A graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a B.S. degree in Marketing, he received his MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. |
Market Intelligence
Zumetrics Suite 250 North Fairfax, VA 22033
855-271-4306
Zumetrics - Print Version
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June 24, 2013
CEOCFO: Mr. Izurieta, would you tell us the concept at Zumetrics?
Mr. Izurieta: Zumetrics is a cloud-based Market and competitive intelligence service. We provide comprehensive, product level ecommerce data for retailers and brand owner’s enabling them to make faster and smarter data driven channel management decisions.
CEOCFO: Are there particular types of retailers or particular industries that you focus on or retail in general?
Mr. Izurieta: Currently we are targeting specific segments of the market focusing on both brand owners and retailers. This includes companies in the following industries: consumer electronics, sporting goods and consumer and commercial tools and appliances. As we grow, our plan is to expand into other industries as well.
CEOCFO: How did you decide which industries would be first?
Mr. Izurieta: We are focusing initially on highly competitive industries which have strong levels of ecommerce transactions and where channel management intelligence can have a strong impact on their success. There is a great deal of significant retailers and brand owners in these industries, and we believe they can quickly recognize the benefits of our services. We are starting here, growing the business based on what we learn from these markets and our clients.
CEOCFO: Market intelligence and analytics are big buzz words these days and there is lots of competition. What have you figured out at Zumetrics that might be easier, faster and better? What is your competitive edge?
Mr. Izurieta: Zumetrics collects product level data based on brands, not just individual products on a given retail site. We match and combine data from various retailers, providing analytics that far exceed what is available in the marketplace today. In turn, our clients get reliable and actionable information which offers macro- and micro-views of their products, retailers, and competitors. Clients can compare and contrast this data in a number of different ways including by product, brand, or retailer. By collecting all of this information, Zumetrics becomes a powerful business intelligence tool for both brand owners and retailers. Brand owners can evaluate how retailers present their own products as well as any competitive products on their ecommerce site. Retailers can analyze both their competitors and the overall ecommerce marketplace to make decisions that ultimately increase their revenue and margins.
CEOCFO: Have companies in the industries that you are starting with been looking for a more comprehensive tool or is it something that they are going to be surprised that is available for them? Are you creating the market or are you fulfilling a need that already exists?
Mr. Izurieta: It’s a bit of both. For brand owners, the market has really been driven around monitoring retailers to see if they are adhering to pricing compliance of the retail agreements. We are not focused on that. We are trying to help our clients understand the entire marketplace. For retailers there is competitive data out there, and there are other companies that provide that service today. However, we do not want to focus on individual products or product analysis, but rather help our clients understand across brands and domains what is really going on in the marketplace and what is really driving these trends to help them truly compete and actually increase revenue and gain market share.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an example of something that you might provide for one of the retailers that would illustrate some of the items that you are talking about?
Mr. Izurieta: What we give to our clients is access to our Zume-Knowledge platform. It is a cloud-based platform and client portal that they can access anywhere and anytime. This platform houses analytical tools which enable them to customize reports based on data which is relevant to their individual needs and marketplace. These tools can drill down to the product level or present high level trending data to understand their product assortment, pricing and promotion positioning versus their competitors. The tool is very intuitive so all of this can be done quickly and as needs arise. Therefore, what we are really providing is analytics and data which is relevant not just to the client, but down to the role of the end user. They can customize their analytics based on their objectives and set up alerts so they understand when relevant changes in the market occur. We are providing intelligence which is relevant and actionable.
CEOCFO: How are you rolling out the service? How are you reaching potential customers?
Mr. Izurieta: For a long time now, we have been getting to know the industry, collecting contact information and knocking on doors. However, we are also building up our marketing engine, which is going to focus on providing knowledge and thought leadership. We really believe that we can penetrate the market if we can help our clients better understand our data and the industry and how to take actions from the data which have positive impacts on their business. We really want to focus on helping them gain knowledge and in turn help them realize the value of our products.
CEOCFO: User friendliness is always an issue. What steps have you taken to really insure that, not just the tech people on your end who see it intuitively, but the user on the other end will really be able to do this with the ease that they should?
Mr. Izurieta: You are absolutely right. User interface and user friendliness is critical for the success of our product. We invested a lot of effort into creating an easy to use, intuitive platform and made sure it does a few key things. We enable different users who have different goals to utilize data in a way that is relevant to them. We make sure that clients do not have to go through excessive training in order to use our platform. Once someone gets access, they can start to use it right away. We accomplish this by focusing on our client’s needs, getting their feedback, understanding what is effective and what is not, utilizing their terminology and allowing the system to intuitively flow from one step to the other. This is something we always continue to test to make sure that the user experience is not based on our developer’s perspective, but our client’s. Simply put, we are using our clients to help us define and advance the product.
CEOCFO: What led you to take on the challenge of Zumetrics? What have you learned from past experiences that you are drawing upon as this new venture rolls out?
Mr. Izurieta: We are a subsidiary of Intersections Inc., a leading provider of consumer identity risk management services. Previously, Intersections had a subsidiary that focused on brand protection for brand owners. That experience helped us understand the marketplace to a great degree. We also understood the value of data within the ecommerce marketplace. We saw an opportunity to create a different value proposition and took on the challenge of finding ways to automate the collection and analysis of unstructured data. Most domains are not structured the same and have varying degrees of product level data points. Therefore, the challenge for our business was to take that data in, organize it and present it to a client in a way that would allow them to take actual steps to improve their own business. That technical challenge was one of the toughest in our business, but it is one that I believe we have done a great job of overcoming.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about your customer service component?
Mr. Izurieta: As a new service and a new platform we recognize the need to have strong customer service. Today, each of our clients receives a dedicated account manager. Our goal is to engage in regular interactions with our clients. We want to make sure that they are able to get the expected value out of our platform and that it is as intuitive as we believe it can be. We are also focused on helping our clients understand the data that we are providing. We realize that in many cases people can understand the value of the data, but when they really start getting into it, they need tools to help them understand how to make that data actionable. That is what we want to accomplish with our platform. Lastly, we believe that our clients can help us define success in the future for ourselves and our product. Therefore, we want to have a great deal of engagement with clients to help understand what is working and what is not working.
CEOCFO: What are the next steps? What will you be doing three months from now, six months from now, a year from now?
Mr. Izurieta: Zumetrics is just starting. With the vast amount of ecommerce data that we are collecting every day, we are continuing to create an increasing number of analytical models and tools to provide clients with higher levels of ecommerce marketplace intelligence. These tools will further our capabilities to create that positive impact for our clients’ bottom line. While we are not ready to make any product announcements, we are working on ways to apply quantitative analysis to the data we collect and that could really help clients gain unique insight into their marketplace.
CEOCFO: Why should investors and people in the business community pay attention to Zumetrics? What makes Zumetrics an exceptional company?
Mr. Izurieta:
Zumetrics offers a
strong value proposition within our platform and our technology. We also
have a very exciting pipeline of product features and enhancements which
will truly set us apart from everyone else in the industry. Additionally, we
are owned by a NASDAQ listed company, Intersections Inc., (INTX). It’s the
best of both worlds. We have the agility and the drive of a startup and the
backing and resources of a large, established company. We have the
capability to invest in our business and grow it with that backing, but we
also have the ability to alter course quickly and make the changes needed
for our business to be successful. The biggest difference with Zumetrics—and
what sets us clearly apart from other companies—is that we have the ability
to take in much more data than our competitors. We are not focused on
individual products or any one segment of the marketplace. We are looking at
the vast marketplace and trying help our clients understand market and
competitive trends so they can take proactive actions instead of reactive
actions. |
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“Zumetrics is a cloud-based Market and competitive intelligence service. We provide comprehensive, product level ecommerce data for retailers and brand owner’s enabling them to make faster and smarter data driven channel management decisions.”- Steve Izurieta |
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