Right person, right message, right time

A colleague and I had a very interesting discussion today over lunch.  I was arguing for the importance of industry in guiding the type of business questions you ask and hence the type of analyses you perform.  He believes that industry or vertical does not matter. 

My professional experience tells me otherwise.  Currently two of my clients have very different challenges.  One is a retailer trying to drive a repeat visit among its customer base.   Given the volume of customers they have and the average basket size, increasing the number of repeat visits can greatly impact revenue.  The other client is a software maker that sells to large manufacturers.  Identifying the right customer who would be interested in their product is key.  They have a much higher price point and much longer buying cycle than the retailer.  For them, understanding lead generation and lead conversion is vital in order to make their sales process more efficient.

However, there was on thing we could agree upon.  It all comes down to giving the right person the right message at the right time.