DataIQ Awards 2023 winner – Persuading with data: JLR

Data was needed to persuade business decision makers to take new courses of action and investigate new avenues of business, which is exactly what the data team at JLR achieved with their Recommended Order Bank (ROB) system.
DataIQ Awards 2023 winner - Persuading with data: JLR

Synthetic control policy evaluation

Data was needed to persuade business decision makers to take new courses of action and investigate new avenues of business, which is exactly what the data team at JLR achieved with their Recommended Order Bank (ROB) system. The ROB uses synthetic control methods to evaluate the effectiveness of JLR’s in-house vehicle configuration recommendation system and achieved a 20% reduction in the average number of days vehicles were in retailer inventory before being sold by moving to an analytically driven recommendation system rather than the traditional subjective process. Despite an initial reluctance to follow the large shift in operations recommended by the ROB, once the data was available it was immediately rolled out to other markets. 

“Impressive research and execution, with buy -in from external and internal stakeholders.” – Judges’ comment 

The existing ROB was a paradigm shift in the ordering of 60% of JLR’s stock (150,000 vehicles), however without data to prove its effectiveness, the business was unsure of rolling it out to other markets. Historically, the process and decision making for choosing the stock vehicles have been led by each individual retailer – third party entities. For ROB, JLR used two key success metrics – profitability and speed of sale – both of which could be improved by ensuring the right vehicle is in the right place at the right time based on customer demand. 

“Clever use of synthetic data.” – Judges’ comment 

There are many dynamic complexities to navigate for JLR, including 10^20 buildable car combinations that regularly change, individual demands by retailers and manual and outdated processes, so by developing a system that can accommodate these variables, the JLR data team was able to demonstrate to stakeholders why these decisions were the right ones. The data team highlighted significant improvements on both profitability and speed of sale that could be directly attributed to the ROB solutions. Furthermore, the success of synthetic controls demonstrated by the value of ROB has been a breakthrough for the data team to pursue more data-driven initiatives across the organisation with backing from decision makers.  

The versatility of synthetic control methods offers a valuable alternative to the gold standard solution to this problem which is to conduct a randomised controlled trial, or A/B test, providing insights in contexts where experimental designs cannot be performed; could be unethical, exorbitantly expensive or technologically infeasible. The potential to estimate causal effects in a variety of settings, combined with the ability to communicate the uncertainty in estimates through confidence intervals, make synthetic control methods an important tool for evaluating policy interventions. By having a more transparent view of how JLR’s initiatives work, the team can ensure that only projects that have a positive impact on customers are continued, leading to a more seamless experience. 

Finalists: 

Save the Children and Ekimetrics Optimising today’s media investment for healthier long-term donations 

DataIQ Awards 2023
Year: 2023
Category: Persuading with Data

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