Scott Palmerino
Professor Lawson
M.I.S
February 23, 2012
Kelley Blue Book Taps Data Analytics Tools to Improve Car Valuation
Kelly Blue Books went from updating cars once a month to updating cars once a week thanks to analytic car valuation. Car buyers look to Kelly Blue Book for new and used car prices and value of cars. Even though Kelly Blue Book has thousands and thousands of people searching their website, they began using a sophisticated data analytics tool to shift through volumes of historical and current data to arrive at what company executives think are better car valuations. "We went from using megabytes of data to using terabytes of data" for estimating car values, said Dan Ingle, vice president of analytic insights technology at Kelley Blue Book. "We moved from simply averaging data to running sophisticated models," based on transaction and regional data, he said. Kelly Blue Book is an example of how a growing number of small and midsized companies are successfully applying data analytics to their system to improve their companies. Among small businesses KBB is the first to try this new system out; it was about three years ago when they brought analytic technology to their company and it’s proved to work ever since. KBB is also using a variety of predictive analytics, data mining and text analytics tools from SAS Institute to help analyze the data it collects. Much of the analytics used to sell new and used-car values, targeted advertisements, customized offers and reviews on the company's website. Overall this is a good article about Kelly Blue Book because it goes to show that with a little technology you can make it easier on yourself and your working staff when looking at your history of who searched the site and what good they got out of it.
Written by Oliver Allen
ReplyDeleteHomework #5
I like what you have written about because Kelly Blue Book has advanced second hand selling of cars far beyond what the company truly envisioned. There use of data and processing it has allowed the user to find there “perfect” car they are looking for. The data analytic tool is very cool, as I believe it has jumped Kelly Blue Book into the elite category among second hand dealers and car sales. Seen through what they have done from moving from megabytes to terabytes is another reaction to the new data analyzing they do. Your ideas based on transition and regional data, I completely agree with has they have successfully applied the data analytics to improve their company completely. Along with my article I talked about how important data mining is and how data is the key to a success in a company. Data comes to no use without it being used. With new development of data analyzers we can count on a company to satisfy our wants and needs accordingly.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog and about Kelley Blue Book. It is simply amazing how the upgrade from megabytes to terabytes could allow the company to skyrocket like it has. Consumers now have the ability to get more detailed information about cars that they may buy. Their new, more sophisticated data analytics is a prime example of how small and mid-sized businesses are able to improve and grow as organization, and also how our technological world is growing and globalizing.