Oxford University Press Uses Alteryx to Automate Data-Led Selling

Oxford University Press (OUP) has a rich history that can be traced back to the earliest days of printing. The first book was printed in Oxford in 1478 and by 1586 the University of Oxford’s right to print books was recognized in a decree from English Court, the Star Chamber.

Today, Oxford University Press is one of the largest university presses in the world with more than 5000 employees in around 50 countries and products sold all over the world covering a broad academic and educational spectrum.

Historical publisher embraces digital opportunities

To achieve its mission, OUP makes world-class resources as widely available as possible. This has required a dramatic shift from centuries of printing books to becoming a digital-first publisher.

Last year, 42,000 books were migrated to the Oxford Academic platform, a digital resource for researchers who want to rapidly access content related to the latest discoveries in their field.

The digital shift in revenue has presented new opportunities for data analysis. “As the volume of content, which is accessed online increases, we have better access to digital data that helps us understand customer behavior and become a more data-driven organization,” says Emma McQuillan, Head of Data and Analytics at OUP.

Using automated analytics for data-led selling 

McQuillan leads a data and analytics team for the Academic division at OUP. Their primary goal was to capture value in the newly available digital data sources, including customer spend, usage, product, and pricing data.

The time-consuming, manual process of sales prospecting provided an opportunity to leverage data insights and automation to save time and tangibly impact revenue. The goal was to create auto-generated, data-led sales opportunities.

Previously, sales reps had to go to different locations or to different teams to get data that would give them the insight they needed for sales outreach opportunities. “We wanted to move static and manual reporting to self-service solutions,” McQuillan said.

Using Alteryx, the data and analytics team combines sales and digital data to identify customers who are best suited for new opportunities or new product areas. For example, by analyzing customer purchasing patterns, gaps in a customer’s product purchases, and product engagement data, a list of accounts can be identified as eligible for buying certain products.

Automating the process further, the data and analytics team created an opportunity template that feeds the data-driven leads directly into Salesforce, the company’s CRM platform. “The process allows sales reps to conserve mental effort and resource when it comes to sourcing opportunities, both in terms of identifying the customer and the product they can sell to them,” said McQuillan.

Demonstrating the financial value of data and analytics excellence

Beyond time savings, the data-led selling solution is contributing to a significant increase in new opportunities and pipeline revenue. Because the auto-generated opportunities are tracked in Salesforce, they can be attributed directly to closed-won deals and revenue for OUP. So far, the analytics solution is connected to increased sales opportunities across multiple products.

McQuillan says it’s important to be able to prove that investments in data, a technically skilled data and analytics team, and an advanced analytics solution like Alteryx are worthwhile. It also validates the impact an analytics culture can have on an organization.

As OUP continues its journey to be a digital-first publisher, McQuillan and her team plan to use more opportunities to leverage the growing volume of data to improve efficiencies and sales efforts.