Information, Not Data, Will Drive Future Corporate Success!

In order to assess how of information not data drives success, you need to consider data within the context of the current business environment.

You can best describe today's environment as multi-channel, multi-media, multi-disciplined and multi-cultural.

• It is an environment where businesses are placing more and more pressure for a Return on Marketing Investment. An environment where the customer is the central focus of business and it is the customer experience that is the “real” definition of Brand.
• It is an environment where data and technology proliferate, while privacy legislation is at an all time high.
• It is in this environment of convergence and conflict that we must consider the evolution of data to actionable information

In years past, demographic data was in some instances (e.g. auto registrations) very available but focused on public compilation and individual company single source data.

Today, as multi-channel marketing matures, data sources are expanding exponentially. Combined with the speed of technology, data is becoming highly available across corporate silos. The future will only bring more data and will require better technology to manage it.

However, today’s environment is not without its issues. As companies test and evolve CRM/CDI technology they are beginning to see that not all data is the same. Many multi-channel environments have matured with separate and often opposing goals, and objectives, often within competing organizations. The new channels have also had in many cases different maturity rates, resulting in the incompatibility of the newer supporting technologies. Things as simple as product descriptions and designations will and do vary. The result is that customer experience is more often characterized by circumstance than strategy.

While these circumstances all exist corporate goals are placing more emphasis and focus on the customer, and achieving better ROI.

However, in the future it will not be data that is the issue but information. It will be how data is integrated and how through analytics and segmentation the much-needed information is created.

It will be the continued dedication to accuracy and value of the source data that will drive this change. It will be the strength of the technology and the level of experience across all types of business and consumer data that will effect how successful you are.

Success will be driven by the ability to adapt, and by determining how you are maximizing your relationships with your existing customers. Success will come only through real and detailed understanding of your customer, and how they can and when they can, be interacted with. However, to accomplish this you first need to build the tools to react to your customer needs in real time.

To be successful you will need to truly personalize your communications through consistent messaging, and consistency within channels and you will need to “build to order” your brands, regardless of which channel a customer buys from.

This type of transformation of data into information will build the brand, but it will require the best data, analytics, and segmentation available.

The journey to this future will not be without its challenges. Even today, the demographic landscape continues to change. We live in a society that is getting older, living longer and is richer than prior generations. Households are not and cannot be defined the same way they were just a few short years ago. For example, Urban Tribes and same sex marriages challenge our traditional definitions.

The challenge then, is how to segment and to develop an understanding of the changing demographics, and how difficult it is to integrate data from disparate groups/channels.

Integration today holds the promise of one location to, store, import and maintain customer data, one resource, accessible across all channels from a single location.

But how can you get there? Individual internal organizations do not see the issues. They are too focused on their day-to-day activities. They currently use technology and data in a way that does not enable them to envision the power of multiple messages developed by multi-media.

I believe the solution is through developing a real understanding of the complexity of data integration and an understanding of the inconsistencies that multi-channel data can present. I believe that by evolving the right combination of technology with data, transforming the data into actionable information, successfully applied to customer behavior can become the required knowledge to drive future success.