A month ago, I had the pleasure of participating in a Webinar with Fatemeh Khatibloo, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.
Rather than an old, staid presentation-style Web event, we approached this one as more of a coffee klatch – a bit of back and forth, more of a discussion. You’re more than welcome to view the replay.
We opened the Webinar on the topic of new and emerging opportunities for CI professionals, in light of the increased complexities associated with their role. Most interesting (or perhaps unsettling) were the stats we shared about the amount of data people create and consume every day. I wrote a post late last year entitled, Numbers That Make Marketers Tremble, but Fatemeh shared an unbelievable stat from David Siegel, Futurist: “Human beings generate 200 exabytes of information each year.” Exabytes…as in 18 zeros. Now imagine having to store, sift through and make sense of that data.
We have entered the Age of the Consumer according to Fatemeh, which means the rules of engagement between brands and consumers have to change. Why? Consumers want to know what you’re doing with all of that data – particularly as it relates to privacy, security, data portability, transparency and economy (value).
Thus, the role of the CI professional has to evolve. In particular, these individuals are tasked with helping their organizations adapt to the age of the consumer by providing better consumer insight and interaction and navigating the muddy waters of data privacy and security.
That’s where the Six Dimensions come in. Quaero built a framework to help CI professionals assess their Customer Intelligence maturity across six key dimensions – strategy, process, organization, technology, data, measurement – to determine where they have gaps and areas of focus. To learn more about the Six Dimensions – particularly as they relate to digital, check out Embracing Digital Customer Interaction by our Change Management guru, Niall Budds.
Fatemeh and I closed the hour-long discussion with five key takeaways/points of consideration. Successful Customer Intelligence:
- Permeates an organization – from short-term, immediate objectives to long range planning
- Sits at the core of successful customer interactions to derive and deliver maximum value
- Is central to strategic planning and drives core business and financial decisions (not just marketing)
- Is supported by the data & technology necessary to generate strategic customer insights
- Requires highly specialized resources who can bridge the gap between data insights and meaningful intelligence for the business
But don’t take my word for it. View the slideshare here:
And if you have any questions, please reach out to me here in the comments section or via Twitter – @michellebb. You can also tweet Fatemeh – @fatemehx2
