3 Steps to Becoming a Customer-Centric, Data-Driven Company

Let’s face it, we are swimming in data all around us that’s locked away in data silos.  Whether it’s sales, marketing, customer, or external data, enterprise legacy systems make it difficult for business users to bring data together so we can innovate, drive revenue, create operational efficiencies, and provide exceptional customer experiences.  To some degree you’re probably flying blind without a holistic view of what’s happening within the business.
But don’t let legacy technology be an excuse for not becoming a data-driven company, constraining your ability to compete in the marketplace and inevitably opening the window to potential market disruption.  Here are 3 steps that will help your company become more customer-centric and use data to drive decision-making:

1. Define business use cases where customer analytics can drive ROI.  That’s right, are you looking to drive sales by deploying sales resources in optimal fashion throughout the country, optimize advertising spend based on real-world transaction activity, or save money by shortening the time it takes a care agent to handle a customer contact?  There are literally dozens of business use cases to be explored and prioritized that can move the needle and pay for your customer analytics initiatives.
2. Bring all the necessary data together in one analytics application. Platforms like Microsoft Azure, AWS, Qlik, Tableau, PowerBI make it possible to extract data from internal systems and visualize in one “central view”, whether onsite or in the cloud. Of course, there are complexities when it comes to integrating structured (sales, marketing, survey) and unstructured data (call center voice, social media, chat, text, email) but that’s what people like me are passionate about, helping enterprises making sense of all their data with omni-channel analytics.
3. Pilot Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict and automate. New advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence make it possible to discover hidden insights, more accurately predict outcomes, and even automate applications to eliminate the need for human decision-making.  We’ve seen successful implementations of weather and social media data used to improve sales forecasting and inventory demand, customer analytics to predict customer fraud and churn, and chatbots to improve customer service. Start with a small proof of concept that leverages these new technologies and expand their use with demonstrated success.

About Anexinet

Anexinet is a leading professional consulting and services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions around digital disruption, analytics (and big data), and hybrid and private cloud strategies. Anexinet brings insight into how technology will impact how business decisions will be made and how our clients interact with their customers in the future.
Mark Langsfeld is an expert in advanced analytics and practice leader at Anexinet who’s expertise spans the Life Sciences, Financial Services, Media, CPG and Food industries. Mark recently received “Innovator of the Year” from Smart CEO-Marcum, which honors Philadelphia’s most innovative companies for his work in this field.