Data analysts.

They are a fairly rare species in the wine industry, which means that analysis is also a weak link when it comes to wine + data. Without analysis, data goes unused and patterns go unrecognized. Without analysts, there’s no interpretation of the data or narrative to give it shape, which means that the industry — and your own business — doesn’t benefit from the opportunities and intelligence hidden beneath the bytes.

We don’t think that the answer is to convert everyone to an analyst’s role, though we’re excited to share more soon about some ideas around data literacy. (“Data literacy” are our Words of the Year for 2021. Please stay tuned!)

We do think that part of the answer is automating analysis, which is why we’ve built a Virtual Analyst into our system.

It means that the analysis is done for you.

It means that your data is finally being put to use, so that patterns are recognized and opportunities are identified.

It means that you’ll see a summary of those findings, which are expressed in clear, easy-to-understand language.

It means that the weak link of wine + data is fortified and strengthened.

Here are a few screenshots to show you how this looks in the ecommerce space, at different moments within our platform.

• How am I doing, overall, for a selected period of time? Link is here. The Virtual Analyst calculates for you the areas where you’re doing Awesome, Positive, Neutral and Worrisome. These calculations are updated as often as the data is updated, typically on a daily basis. If there’s no “Awesome” news, we don’t show you the Awesome bullet point. If there’s only “Worrisome” news, then that’s what you’ll see.

• How am I doing in a specific area, like order types or channels? Link is here. There’s good news, namely your channels that are the most valuable, the most improved and your fastest growing. And there’s some not so good news, namely the channel that’s taking the biggest hit.

To be clear, our Virtual Analyst doesn’t try to elbow out real people who do this work. On the contrary, we know that the industry would benefit from more of those real people applying their skill set to wine. For those people, our Virtual Analyst is essentially an assistant who enables them to do their job faster and better.

Until more wine businesses hire analysts, and until budgets are expanded and allocated to allow for more people in those roles, we’d like to introduce you to our Virtual Analyst.

Please be in touch on this. We’re incredibly excited about the possibilities, as you can imagine.

PS Next week we’ll return to our Who-What-Where-When-How-Much? series, to round out the year’s Enolytics 101 posts. In the meantime, you can revisit the post and lookbook for How Much? And the post and lookbook for Who, and the post and lookbook for What.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for your support.