Web Analyst Interview: K. Trinadh Rao

Continuing my series of interviews with Web Analyst, here is an interview with K. Trinadh Rao. Trinadh lives in Chennai, India.

What is your current position and the name of the company you work for?
Currently I am with Franklin Templeton as “Manager – Web Analytics”. Basically I am responsible for defining the process in report metrics that are usable for different stake holders. I manage relationships between eBusiness and global stakeholder teams for web reporting in Franklin Templeton. Also, as an organization stand of point of view, Franklin Templeton is really serious on setting up internal competency and helping the business with meaningful reports and analysis.

How long have you been working in this field?
I have been in the field of Online Marketing & Analytics for more than 6 years. I started my career as Web specialist, responsible for intranet & internet sites. Later I moved on to measuring the site usage and other online marketing activities like SEO, SEM, and E-mail marketing and finally into pure play web analytics and strategy. Interesting part of all these online activities is that they are linked with Metrics to show their ROI and how well they integrated with the website/online property.

Tell me about your work, education prior to making a switch to Web Analytics.
I started my career with Ausvista in Chennai, later moved to CollabNet. After CollabNet, I worked with Cognizant for a short stint, where I was responsible for setting up Web Analytics competency and sell the service to Global Clients. I had a chance to meet and present the true value of web analysis to Global Clients from various verticals/domains. Worked with different business units to identify and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals. I did my bachelors in Maths and Web Analytics course from UBC.

Why did you decided to switch to pure play Web Analytics?
It was after I met Tim Cloonan (Ex-Director of Marketing, CollabNet). He was so keen on measuring website success and other online campaigns. This gave an opportunity for me to consider Web Analytics as a key factor that drives online business forward. Initially I had to work on Log files for Web Analytics. We created a web interface that helps Marketing & Sales folks to see the web reports directly on weekly/monthly basis. Later, I had a chance to work on different tools like ClickTracks, Google Analytics, WebTrends, NetTracker, and Omniture for different assignments.

How did you find your new job? How long did it take?
I think it was from Linked In or Monster. Not sure exactly! I have been receiving tons of offers from different companies. Finally I have decided to work with Franklin Templeton which is a Global Investment Management company and I am interested to work on financial domain. It took me 3 weeks and 7 rounds of discussion to get into Franklin Templeton!

What are you job responsibilities? Describe your typical work day.
Right now, I am responsible to oversee web report production for all Franklin Templeton eBusiness managed sites as well as specified intranet and service sites. As I mentioned earlier, I develop and manage processes for reporting; report requests, requirements gathering, distribution and communication. I represent the interests of Website Reporting to Franklin Templeton eBusiness team and act as a leader for web analytic knowledge and statistics inside the organization.

What are the skills that you think are important for a web analyst?
I believe that an ideal Web Analyst should poses blend of Business and Technical skills. He should be articulate and understand the online business quickly.

What education or work experience helped you in making this transition?
I feel my previous experience working with companies that treat online marketing and reporting as critical business component, helped me to continue in and contribute to Web Analytics field. Offcourse, UBC helped me a lot!

What education is lacking, education or experience that would have helped?
If anything truly lacking, it is the awareness of Web Analytics. I am trying my best to create this awareness among the people here by conducting WAW.

What web analytics/online-marketing books have you read and/or own?
Web Analytics Demystified. I read a lot from blogs and articles from people like Jim Sterne, Eric, Avinash, you (Anil) and Hurol

What helped you in finding your new job?
I would say my experience in this field helped me to get a new job!

What are the major challenges that you are facing in this industry?
I find lot of companies still not able to figure out what kind of reports they need. I agree there are a lot of data sets available now-a-days, but making meaningful reports from the data and get actionable insights from the reports are the key challenge. Also, decision making is major challenge.

How do you make sure you are learning and growing in this field?
Continuous learning and keep monitoring on industry trends and growth. I will make sure to spend 1-2 hrs daily on web analytics group mails, and blogs from Eric, Avinash and you (Anil).

Do you have blog?
In process of setting up one, very soon you will see that!

Any advice to aspiring web analysts?
Pick up the web analytics basics first! Try to understand the business models of various internet companies and analyze how web metrics can help them in driving their online business forward. Last but not least, be passionate about web analytics!

Thank you for your time Trinadh.

If you are in web analytics field and would like to interview for my blog please contact me at batraonline at gmail.com. Please take a 5 mins survey that I am doing to understand web analysts salary and skills.