Business intelligence on demand

  Retailers wanting insight into regional demographic data heretofore invested tens of thousands of dollars or more in analytical tools and data, handed everything over to IT to implement and waited. That's fine (maybe) if you're a big operation like Nordstrom's or Wal-Mart contemplating where to locate your next store. If you're a small or mid-size chain, it's less than optimal.

Enter Asterop Inc., a Paris-based business intelligence company with U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. Its new Asterop On-Demand service let's you enter your credit card data on its Web site as if on Amazon.com and, for less than $100, get intelligence about consumer behavior in a region of interest. According to Bryan Vais, chief operating officer, you can create BI models based on consumer demographics, expenditures and segmentation with specific weights to the various data. "You can build a formula on the fly," he says. For example, Asterop On-Demand can help you locate clusters of like-minded consumers who buy auto parts, high-end bicycles, or even the latest Paris fashions in an urban area. Vais emphasizes the importance of Asterop's analytical tools to make the data fecund. "Data is one thing, turning it into information and information into knowledge is the trick," he says.

Later this year, Asterop On-Demand will be adding the capability for users to upload their own data into the mix for more personalized business intelligence. Vais brags that Asterop is "transcending the ho-hum approach" to BI.