Column: Predictive value

This column, written by Sandra van den Poll, partnership manager at JADS, was published before in the Food+Agribusiness magazine.

Last weekend, like every year, I found myself and half the village cozily lining up at the bakery to pick up my pre-ordered Easter rolls. Holidays like Easter and Christmas have been big challenges for many bakers up until recently. It takes more staff than usual to handle all the orders as quickly as possible, but it is also on these very days that the regular staff likes to take the day off. Now the holidays are fairly predictable and you can anticipate them, however there are also lots of other influences on sales numbers that are not so easy to predict. For example, the weather, but also trends like the crompouce, cronut and other variations on the croissant from past years.

I have been speaking to more and more entrepreneurs who want to explore the possibilities of data science in this area. This has already led to some nice successes. Take, for example the linking of weather data to sales data. Based on trend analysis of the past five years, sales could suddenly be predicted several weeks ahead. This helped the baker with his purchase planning, but also with his personnel planning. Because if on a hot day there are fewer people queuing, because they are waiting at the ice cream stand, for example, you also need fewer staff.

Trends are somewhat more difficult to predict, but in this area, too, developments are happening fast. A lot of data is available through social media that can help predict these kinds of trends. However, these analyses are much more complex and may not be necessary for the average entrepreneur. Only those with trendsetter ambitions might get enough value out of this to make the investment worthwhile.

In short, there is predictive value in data for every entrepreneur. The important question is to properly determine which challenge can be solved using it and whether it will yield sufficient results to make that investment worthwhile. Because the fact remains: any change often requires an investment before it yields results. Standing in line at the bakery at Easter also has its charms.