The Deloitte Consumer Review series aims to provide an insightful and impartial view of selected consumer trends that we believe will have a significant impact on Consumer businesses.

In our third edition, Seeing the big picture: Making sense of consumer data we look at how businesses can unlock consumer information to extract a competitive advantage and grow market share. We call this ‘competing on insight' and in many cases it requires a fundamental shift in the way that businesses view the role of data in developing marketing and operational strategy.

The report also includes results of our quarterly Deloitte Consumer Tracker (Q3, 2012) a forward-looking economic update, focusing on consumer spending attitudes and behaviours.

Key findings

The report

• With more consumer data available than ever before, there is a great opportunity for businesses to turn data into insight and to use that insight to establish deeper and more meaningful relationships with consumers.
• Our research has shown that current levels of engagement with analytics vary dramatically from business to business, even within the same sector. Many businesses do not have the capabilities to turn the volume of data into actionable insight. Others only use data driven insights to inform a limited amount of decisions.
• Businesses using advanced analytics are moving from a retrospective approach to predicting consumer actions, enabling them to give consumers what they want, when and how they want it – ahead of competitors.
• For businesses to grow and retain their customer base, they need to build a robust customer analytics strategy. Analytics can positively impact almost every area of business, and executives must ensure the right organisational structure is in place to support key drivers of insight and implementation.

The Deloitte Consumer Tracker

• UK consumer sentiment is its strongest since Q3 2011
• Sentiment around the level of disposable income improved by ten percentage points in the past 12 months
• The rise in consumer confidence has been underpinned by job security and consumers' focus on reducing debt
• Defensive spending behaviours lessen as fewer consumers trade down and bargain hunt
• Looking ahead to 2013, consumers remain concerned about rising prices and plan to continue to save and rebuild their finances.

Full report:

www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedKingdom/Local%20Assets/Documents/Industries/Consumer%20Business/uk-cb-consumer-review-2012.pdf