Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

THE IMPACT CYCLE IN ACTION: THE MONSTER EMPLOYMENT INDEX

We have used the IMPACT cycle with many organizations over the years. However, one case study that put it into action was the development of the Monster Employment Index by one of the coauthors, Jesse Harriott. The leaders of Monster Worldwide, the largest online recruitment company in the world, came to Jesse and indicated that they wanted to do something public with data and wanted him to think about what could be done. There was little initial direction at that point, so Jesse worked with the CEO at the time, Andy McKelvey, to identify the key business objectives. After some discussion, it turned out that the goal was to develop some ongoing information that could be used to generate interest in Monster and could position Monster as an authority. Jesse set the expectation to give him three weeks, and he would come up with some options and an analysis that would help the CEO make some decisions. Jesse spent much of the time poring over various types of industry data, as well as Monster’s data. What he discovered was that little standardization existed across Monster or the industry at that time. Jesse also saw that no public information existed regarding online recruitment activity. At the time, there was only print recruitment data and backward-looking government statistics on the labor market from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a result of analyzing the available data, Jesse concluded that Monster had a unique opportunity ...