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Data is the driving force behind any business’s key strategic decisions, but oftentimes, businesses struggle to translate the vast amounts of data and insights they have into something actionable and tangible. How can cloud data help?
Working together, Mastercard and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are seeking to provide organizations with the latest location and spend insights to make informed strategic business decisions.
“Mastercard has a broad presence across regions and can provide businesses across industries and regions with powerful insights,” said Paul Chang, Head of Payments at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Through the partnership between Mastercard and AWS Data Exchange partnership, we can collaborate to deliver meaningful insights and solutions to businesses across markets and industries to help them address their own unique challenges.”
“When we think about Mastercard’s data and services business, we’re focused on helping our customers make smarter decisions that lead to better outcomes for everyone,” added Stuart Finkelstein, Executive Vice President, Data and Services, Mastercard “Our partnership allows us to expand our reach through simple access and helps us scale by putting these powerful tools into the hands of more customers. “
The two companies took a deep dive into their partnership and why it’s so important on a recent PaymentsJournal podcast. Finkelstein, Chang, and Marco Salazar, director of technology and infrastructure at Mercator Advisory Group, also spoke about how two products—Mastercard SpendingPulse™ and Mastercard Places—are key solutions for organizations looking to stay ahead of their competition.
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Advantages of AWS Data Exchange
Through AWS Data Exchange, customers can locate, subscribe to, and use third-party data to supplement their own internal data, thereby enhancing their decision-making capabilities.
Data subscribers expressed a need to locate and consume data in the cloud, as more and more data is being generated and stored, Chang said. “They want it to be as easy as shopping online today so their teams can focus on producing differentiated products and spend time on value-adding activities rather than discovering data, maintaining infrastructure or managing revisions,” he said.
“As a subscriber, you can reduce the time to find and acquire data from months to hours with minimal changes to existing operations,” Chang added. “AWS Data Exchange makes it easier to manage data subscriptions by consolidating contracts, billing, and payments in one place.”
At the same time, data providers also see benefits, especially in terms of reaching a wider customer base. “Data providers can release data to all their customers at the same time and spend more time growing their business rather than managing logistics,” Chang said.
Leverage data-driven insights
Both Mastercard and AWS see the challenges organizations face when it comes to data—in particular, many organizations aren’t sure what to do with the vast amounts of information they have, or whether it’s accurate.
“Mastercard SpendingPulse is a macroeconomic indicator of retail sales that measures in-store and online retail sales, including all forms of payment,” Finkelstein said. Estimates for other types of payments, such as cash and checks, in order to answer key business questions for our clients.”
“For example, clients can use it to gain a competitive perspective, enabling them to understand their market share and competitive positioning,” continued Finkelstein. “It provides them with timely information that allows them to quickly adapt and react to changing sales trends. This understanding of trends opens up data-driven opportunities as they examine consumer buying habits and make predictions, Help them identify and exploit untapped potential.”
Mastercard Places provides a consolidated view of all merchant locations that accept Mastercard for online and in-store payments. “Location is captured from aggregated anonymized transactional data matched against lists of third-party location data,” Finkelstein said. “Using Places, our clients can see how merchants have changed over time and the payment activity each location supports — and how the merchant landscape is constantly evolving.”
focus on ethical practice
With Mastercard’s massive global reach—accumulating staggering amounts of data—it sits on a goldmine of information, prompting the need for ethical policies for its use.
“There are multiple touchpoints to the payments network, both from a consumer and a merchant perspective,” Salazar said. “This provides access to rich data sets that support and simplify a wide range of products and experiences.”
“It has to be done with a good balance,” he continued. “It must focus on ethical access and use of data to protect the privacy of both parties.”
“The network itself and the data we have is very important,” Finkelstein added. “Last year, Mastercard processed a total transaction volume of $7.7 trillion, processing 112 billion transactions across approximately 3 billion cards in 200 countries and territories. The use of all this data and the power it brings must be linked to our ethical practice.”
In terms of ethical practices, the focus is on security and privacy, transparency and control. Through accountability, solutions ensure that individual interests are put first. The upshot is that data analytics can promote inclusive, comprehensive and fair behaviour.
“We always maintain integrity because we want to continue to innovate to ensure that individuals benefit from using their data through a better experience,” Finkelstein said. “We believe that the combination of our strong data and ethical use practices makes our Data is so powerful in our solution.”
How customers use SpendingPulse and Places
Leading organizations use Mastercard SpendingPulse and Places to enhance their day-to-day decision-making. For example, a pharmacy chain wants to measure market performance by considering the impact of macroeconomic trends. “Using SpendingPulse insights, they were able to compare their performance in these specific markets to the industry as a whole,” Finkelstein said. “They also understand channel spending trends.”
“They found that they were underperforming in higher-density areas where the shift to online was more pronounced and in-store shopping was declining,” he added. and thus revolutionized their future investment strategies.”
In another example, a grocer wanted to expand and open new locations. It needs to know where its competitors are located, as well as the shopping behavior of consumers in the region. Using the Mastercard Places solution, the grocer understands potential competitor merchants and their locations, as well as indicators of their popularity with consumers.
“Grocery stores can use this information to determine ideal locations for new stores,” Finkelstein said. “And they’re able to chart a roadmap for future growth without cannibalizing their footprint or entering an oversaturated market.”
Looking Ahead: Top Trends This Holiday Season
Three main trends are expected to emerge this holiday season, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. The first is that many consumers will start their holiday shopping earlier in the year, hunting for bargains as the cost of everyday essentials continues to rise.
Key sales days, including Black Friday, are set to make strong returns this year, as will Christmas Eve, which falls on a Saturday before Christmas and is expected to be one of the biggest days for retailers.
Finally, the in-store experience will come into play across the board. A growing number of brick-and-mortar stores are offering in-store experiences to entice customers to shop.
For more information on Mastercard SpendingPulse and Places solutions, please follow this associate.