Driving Change in eCommerce: Learnings for the Retail Industry from F1 Analytics
Alex Santos is a Senior Data Scientist in our London office and previous Motorsport and Automotive Engineer. He has developed cars for large British manufacturer, as well as race cars for a Formula 1 team. Following his engineering career, he moved entirely into the data science world, where he is inspired by the use of data to increase our confidence on the decisions we have to make every day: reducing stress and increasing our output.
In this feature, we explore his transferable learnings from the motorsport world to Ocula’s eCommerce optimisation offering, Ocula Boost.
How was data integral to success during your time as an F1 engineer?
In my role, I analysed both real car data and generated models to augment that data. These constant connections between the virtual and real world helps F1 teams to reduce the level of testing needed to ensure that they have the right information to make a decision. This is critical in both decisions around races and car development.
What excited you about the move to data science from engineering?
What really excited me about data science for eCommerce specifically was the sheer amount of data available and how tricky it is to distinguish the noise from relevant information.
Providing clear, concise and prioritised recommendations to retail leaders from all that data and information is the challenge that drives me every day, even after all these years.
Now, how does the application of your previous experience help retailers to revolutionise their business?
One of the key things that I learned in F1 is that it’s more than data just providing recommendations - it’s about providing them at the right time.
What we’ve developed and continue to develop here at Ocula follows this exact approach for eCommerce: it provides exactly the right information, with the right detail and in the right format, so that our clients can make the decisions that will drive the highest impact.
Another important learning that I have taken with me is to have all aspects of your racecar (or website) under control. For example, trying to add more power to a car that does not corner well is likely not the focus that will drive greater results; in the same way, increasing advertising spend that just drives more users to your eCommerce site might not be where to focus, if load times and sub-optimal product pages then kill your conversion rate.
There’s plenty of space here where small improvements could have a big impact - that’s something we’re often seeing with our live clients.
How can advanced analytics help retailers to get ahead of their competition, especially in the run up to the most competitive time of year?
The last 2 months of the year are a busy period for everyone, but it is also extremely important eCommerce players. The role of advanced analytics here, as we advocate for at Ocula, is to do all the complex analysis and homework in the background, meaning eCommerce managers can use this to quickly and confidently make the right decision.
This maximises the impact achieved by giving back time and space to team members to focus their energy on the other big demands on their time.
There's a saying in F1 that “if you are standing still, you are moving backwards”, as all your competition is also making progress.
That’s why having a tool that enables you to do more confidently, like Ocula Boost, will help you get ahead of your competition.
