The past year has seen incredible disruption in the way companies do business – across all industries. The covid-19 pandemic is of course, the primary driver of this disruption. According to a McKinsey Global Survey, over the last year businesses have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions, and of their internal operations by a remarkable three-to-four years. In other words, the time for digital transformation is here. And if your company hasn’t jumped on the digital transformation train, now is definitely the time to get your ticket.
Businesses now agree: Digital transformation is a must to succeed in a post-pandemic world
Previously, we’ve written about the impacts of digital transformation on marketers and about all the ways that digital transformation is defined. To recap, digital transformation can be summed up as an increased organization-wide focus on data-driven digital processes and an embrace of digital channels to transform business processes -- for both customers and staff -- to make them much more efficient and effective and deliver a superior customer experience.
That same McKinsey study found that businesses have realized that digital capabilities are key factors of success during the pandemic, and now plan to spend significantly more dollars and effort transforming their organizations digitally. What the pandemic taught us is that benefits like reduced costs, improved agility and innovation, consolidated operations, and a reduction in organizational silos can be achieved through digital transformation.
For marketers specifically, there are several key benefits of digital transformation:
1. Improved customer experience. Digital transformation seeks to connect company-wide systems and technologies which in turn standardizes the overall customer experience. By eliminating dependence on slower legacy systems, transformed businesses can become more responsive to customer trends and demands. In addition, digital transformation’s goal to innovate and improve the design of individual customer journeys, as well as to centralize and increase the speed of data insights – can improve and personalize the customer experience in real-time.
2. Data-driven decision-making. Digitalization provides the ability to combine data from all customer interactions into a useful, actionable format to more accurately segment your audience and optimize their shopping experience. And data-driven marketing decisions always win out over guesswork. Easy access to real-time analytics can help you more wisely use your marketing budget as well.
3. A unified view of the customer. Related to the above, pulling data digitally from multiple customer systems into one unified view of each customer provides better understanding of customer behavior over time, allowing marketers to prioritize the right channels and messages for each customer – ultimately enhancing their purchase experience. And all of this is impossible without first connecting your systems digitally.CDPs are often cited as one of the best technologies to support digital transformation
To make the most of their digital transformation, many organizations have turned to a customer data platform (CDPs) to connect customer systems across their company, kickstart new initiatives, and more narrowly focus on the data that matters most. A CDP can take data “signals” from customers (for example, responses to prior marketing campaigns, demographics, or interactions with a brand’s social media) and integrate those signals in real-time so that other systems and processes can respond – with new offers, personalized emails, and more.
The most advanced CDPs, such as the QuickPivot Customer Data Platform, can be added to an organization’s marketing technology stack at any time with little to no disruption of ongoing operations and with no need to replace or remove any existing systems. This means that no matter where your organization is in its digital transformation journey, marketers can immediately reap the many benefits that CDPs have to offer: simpler customer data management, more accurate and informed data segmentation, and more effective, data-driven marketing campaigns.
The takeaway: The right CDP will set you up for a successful digital transformation effort
Digital transformation has evolved into a necessary and organization-wide endeavor that updates not just technology but also company-wide processes to be more agile and responsive in the face of constantly-changing customer needs and wants...and CDPs are the key to any digital transformation effort.
Built to help marketers corral troves of customer data and unify it in one easy-to-use and easy-to-access system, CDPs help you eliminate data silos, make better data-driven business decisions, and achieve a unified view of the customer. These areas are all critical for delivering personalized, individualized customer experiences and desired customer journeys -- one of the core goals of any digital transformation project. And unlike CRM systems, which many organizations often believe are adequate for supporting real-time, personalized marketing campaigns, CDPs are designed to integrate real-time customer interaction data so you have a truly real-time understanding of your customers and your ongoing campaigns.
CRM systems have their place, but their focus is customer interactions at the account and individual contact level. The kind of flexible data functionality needed to ensure a worthwhile and long-lasting digital transformation can only be found in a CDP that gives you the power to control your customer data and use it how you see fit -- and the QuickPivot CDP is one of the few that can do just that.
Want to learn more about how the QuickPivot CDP can fit into your digital transformation journey? Contact us today!
