Blue Dot transforming market research through data

Data analytics and market research company Blue Dot Data Intelligence Limited is a start-up that appears to be defying the slow growth and funding profile of small entrepreneurial ventures.

Having reached five years into its operations this month, it has already lined up an impressive portfolio of blue-chip clients and attracted equity financing from listed junior market company SSL Venture Capital Jamaica Limited and businessman Craig Hendrickson, the likely heir to the National Baking Company’s corporate management and fortunes.

Still, founder and CEO Larren Peart says the company is hunting fresh cash, with local and regional acquisitions on the horizon and a potential IPO on the cards, possibly within the next two years.

SSL Ventures owns 40 per cent of the company, in which it invested last year, while Hendrickson pumped US$1.1 million into the firm in July this year for a 20 per cent stake, which values the business at US$5.5 million. Peart owns an undisclosed size of the business, which is also said to have a silent partner.

Most of the company’s growth in business turnover and equity financing has come in the last two years. Peart would not provide specifics on the company’s revenues, but said the uptake on the company’s heavy focus on technology was slow in the first several years of operation.

“We are in merger and acquisition mode now, so we are looking to acquire or merge with companies in the region. We are about to start another funding round,” Peart told the Financial Gleaner in an interview.

Before entering the phase of big financing, Peart, a Branson Entrepreneurial Centre of the Caribbean alumnus, received business training from the Branson Centre and was the recipient of a grant of $2.5 million from the Development Bank of Jamaica’s IGNITE programme that provides venture capital to start-ups.

The money was used to help grow Blue Dot’s market research project. The DBJ also provided capacity development support to the firm in the areas of business process improvement, corporate governance and marketing.

With little or no machinery to use as collateral, Peart, an information technology specialist and Munro College graduate, says bank loans have been impossible to come by for the service business, which has relied on grant funding and equity financing for growth and expansion. “Before I went to the Branson Centre, I had a nine-to-five job and the business was a side hustle. They helped me to see the bigger picture and formalise the business,” he recalls.

Blue Dot Data likes to think of itself as being in the business of decisions because it enables clients to make decisions confidently. Apart from data mining and digital analytics to give its customers consumer behaviour information from myriad online sources, it offers real-time market research using tablet computers in the field. Peart says Blue Dot’s survey clients get feedback from the time the first response is recorded in the field.

The company is also said to be pioneering in Jamaica, the use of neuroscience in marketing, as well as voting behaviour predictions. Neuroscience, or the study of the nervous system and human behaviour, is being applied to marketing using brain activity measurement technology and computer algorithms to gauge people’s responses and desires.

Peart explains that while traditional market research methodologies only measure explicit responses, neuroscience captures the body’s biometric or physiological response and subconscious associations and aspirations.

In studying people’s subconscious, it is the unstated responses that often contain a treasure trove of information for companies seeking to sell their products and services, particularly fast-moving consumer goods distributors. Its eye-tracking studies and package testing are also among the data company’s highly sought-after services, particularly for businesses redesigning packaging or launching new products.

Understanding and tapping into the motivations and behavioural patterns of a fleeting and disloyal younger demographic is seen as being vital to company decisions. Retail analytics and consumer goods trade auditing utilising computer applications are among the latest service offerings from the data firm.

Using what Blue Dot says is its proven ability to provide accurate, cutting-edge, scientific and real-time consumer behaviour information, it has chalked up a list of clients that include ATL Group, National Baking Company, Hi-Lo Food Stores, Flow, Jamaica National Group, Supreme Ventures, Digicel, First Global Bank, National Commercial Bank, Knutsford Express, Eve foods, among other Jamaican companies.

Outside Jamaica, Blue Dot has done work for Caribbean Lottery Company, based in Barbados; National Lottery Control Board of Trinidad; American company Kraft Foods; as well as work for Jamaican conglomerate Grace Kennedy in its United States and Canadian operations.

By Peart’s calculations, the company has tapped into less than five per cent of the market opportunities in Jamaica, with even greater business potential in the Caribbean, particularly in Trinidad and St Lucia.

Noting that only about 10 per cent of revenues is derived from work done for governments and/or political parties, Peart says it’s a market segment that his company is looking to regionally for greater take-up of its services, including political polling.

Peart says the company used neuroscience applications to accurately predict the winner of the East Portland by-election in April this year. “It is a lot more accurate than asking people questions, because people sometimes lie,” he says.

Some 42 countries with elections due by 2023 have been identified as potential places from which to secure work tracking voting intentions. Already, both the governing Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People’s National Party have utilised the services of Blue Dot Data.

In the business arena, Peart is seeking to add more small businesses to Blue Dot’s clientele. A new platform, called Blue Dot Comuna, was recently launched to drastically reduce the cost of market research especially for start-ups. Individuals can log on to the platform, pose market research questions and receive feedback almost immediately, Peart explained.

Blue Dot’s team includes computer experts, social media analysts, statisticians and actuarial scientists.

With a staff of 10 full-time employees, 75 interviewers on contract in Jamaica, and teams in other countries of the Caribbean, the United States and Canada, the company is looking to expand its footprint in Jamaica and beyond in the next few years.

“Data is the future,” the entrepreneur declared.

huntleymedley@gleanerjm.com