monetizing personal touch

7/29/2019 Monetizing Personal Touch

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Accenture Interactive | Point o View Series

Monetizing thePersonal TouchGear up to meet the multichannelmarketing challenge


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Digital disruption is the newnormal. No longer conned to achannel or a standalone strategy,digital is now a core reality.As consumers interact acrosschannels on a daily basis, socompanies need to maintainan omnichannel presence.

In todays always-on, always-connected world, mailboxesboth virtual and physicalareoverfowing, a myriad o onlinestores and traditional providersare vying or a share o the(electronic) wallet, and mediais ltered by consumer-drivenpreerences. Without control othe market orces and consumer

demand dictating the run oplay, how will the corporateworld respond? What are theimplications or marketing spendor supply chain? Can physicaland virtual merchandizingbecome integrated?

Customers always look or convenient and

personalized servicesthe right product in

the right place at the right time. Sounds

simpleand it was when products were ew,

shops consisted o the general store or local

high street, and retail hours were rom nine

to ve, six days a week. But in todays digital

marketplace where customers can literally

get anything, anywhere, anytime, knowing

how to deliver a personalized service and

making it cost eective are no longer

simple tasks.

The success that companies such as eBay

and Amazon in the United States, Taobao in

China, and Rakuten in Japan are enjoying

through delivering a tailored and relevant

online experience is well documented.

Without the complexities o bricks and

mortar stores, traditional business models

and legacy inrastructure, these online

retailers are orging ahead.

There are also examples o traditional

retailers or consumer goods companies

that are rising to the challenge by making

the in-store experience an engaging and

ecient one or customers. For example,

digital receipts are growing in popularity

ater being introduced by Apple in 2005

as a convenience or the customer and

a relationship touchpoint or retailers.

Another example is Nordstrom Inc., a leading

clothing retailer in the United States, which

has ocused on in-store customer services

to build a trusted relationship, makingthe shopping experience as personal and

enjoyable as possible. Other examples include

Aholds Stop & Shop supermarket chain,

which has been delivering timely in-store

promotions to customers through its hand-

held shopping application or a number o

years; and retail powerhouse Walmart is

aligning its in-store video streaming to be

as relevant as possible to customers who

shop in specic aisles where the monitors

are installed. When Whole Foods Market,

the natural and organic supermarket chain,

learned that many on-the-go clients,especially in cities like New York, just dont

cook at home, it not only started stocking its

aisles with tasty precooked oods, but also

created a welcoming in-store shared table

to encourage customers to stay back, enjoy

their meal and meet interesting people.

However, most multinational companies

today are alling short o delivering customers

with a unique experience across ofine, online

and mobile channels. With seemingly innite

sources o consumer data detailing purchasehistory, interests, lie-stage, liestyle, and a

host o other personal preerencesknowing

how to crat actionable insights to drive

business decisions is proving a mighty task.

The ability to restructure the organization

to deliver a very personalized and relevant

experience to a range o potential and

existing customers across multiple channels,

all day, every day, will be essential to survival

in the digital marketplace.

Monetizing the Personal TouchGear up to meet the multichannel marketing challenge


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1 Baiju Shah and Nandini Nayak, Got the R Factor:Driving breakthrough perormance in the Era oRelevance, 2012

Ofine, online, on-the-go

Since consumers can move seamlessly

between online and ofine channels

without distinction, companies realize

that they can no longer have a separate

marketing strategy or dierent channels.

Customer-centric businesses are shiting

their ocus rom treating digital as a distinct

channel, to creating an integrated customer

experience across all channels. Today, the

consumer base is no longer homogenous

nor geographically restricted, but highlyheterogeneous and global, with very diverse

preerences, cultures, technology awareness

and socio-economic mix.

To be able to tailor specic messages and

oerings to dierent consumers,

companies will need to build detailed

consumer proles rom multiple sources

using advanced analytics techniques

enhancing understanding o likely buyer

values and preerences, stage a consumer

is at in the buying cycle and key infuencers.Through this granular approach companies

will be able to respond quickly to consumer

requests with contextually relevant

messages, and begin to anticipate consumer

needs based on similar buying patterns.

Stepping stones

The challenge o personalization then is not

about obtaining data, but how to select and

analyze the right data to drive real consumer

insights, and how to commercialize it to

deliver business results.

To maximize the marketing return on

investment (MROI) companies need to be able

to attract, serve and maintain customers by

delivering relevant products and services at

point o needto achieve consumer relevance

at scale.1 This may seem like an overwhelming

challenge at rst glance, but companies can

meet this challenge by developing a well-

thought out roadmap using an integrated

marketing strategy.

At the heart o this roadmap is the ability

to reach consumers at the most granular

level by making macro marketing programs,

such as circulars, emails or out-o-

home messaging, more personalized and

relevant. By developing multiple identities

o ofine and online customers, which

can then be used to create inquiries with

respect to their predicted buying patterns,

companies can pursue a proactive marketing

approach, enabling real-time responses

across multiple touchpoints. Instead o

pushing messages and promotions out and

hoping some consumers will nd them

relevant, companies can create a marketing

environment, both in-store and virtually,

which attracts potential and existing

customers alike.

So, how to shit gears toachieve the more relevantcustomer-centric experiencerequired in todays

multichannel, competitivemarketplace? There are veundamental steps that willhelp marketing executivesavoid being let behind in theindustry shakeup.
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Relevance-At-Scale-POV-WEB-5April.pdfhttp://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Relevance-At-Scale-POV-WEB-5April.pdfhttp://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Relevance-At-Scale-POV-WEB-5April.pdfhttp://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Relevance-At-Scale-POV-WEB-5April.pdfhttp://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Relevance-At-Scale-POV-WEB-5April.pdf


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Acknowledge the

Present State

Build an Integrated

Strategy

There are ve undamental

steps that CMOs shouldconsider when restructuringthe marketing organizationto meet customer needs.

Steps to customer-centricity

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2

It is important to understand the current

situation within the company and

marketplace today. With physical stores

increasingly being seen as showrooms by

consumers who want to try on their items

beore buying online, retailers need to take

a hard look at their value proposition.

Most traditional companies are saddled

by silos o departments such as marketing,

merchandizing, operations and supply

chain, each organized around specicbusiness processes and unctions. These

silos are now becoming an impediment

to organizations wanting to become

customer-centrica transition that online

retailers have been relatively successul in

making. In the absence o an integrated

internal structure, companies are orced

to buy customer data, compounding the

issue, as data syndicators cannot reach the

granularity required. Competing companies

end up with similar insights leaving the

market with ew true innovators. Breaking

down these internal silos and bridging the

gap between product and customer value

is a key rst step in this journey.

Companies should next look at the overall

customer strategy and identiy the macro-

and micro-marketing activities that are

required to achieve business goals. Thereis little point in taking a 30 second TV spot

in the Superbowl or a reality show, with

audiences in the millions, or a product

which has a target audience o 25,000.

This integrated approach across unctional

areas requires companies to understand

several aspects about consumers.

Value: Dene the values o a customer

to the enterprise and know where dierent

customers t into the value spectrum

whereas some companies take too

rudimentary an approach, others limit

the number o contextual views or tiers

and never drill down to a granular level

to understand customer preerences.

Behavior: Build consumers shopping

proleshow requently they come to

the store and how broadly they shop

across the store? Really getting to know

a consumer on an individual basis and

developing a personal relationship willbe a key dierentiator or retailers.

Motivations: What motivates consumers

to make a purchaseis it brand, taste,

quality or price? Is it a combination o

priorities? Or, are consumers motivated

by some other actors? I so, what are

those actors?

Intent: Understand the potential value

o a consumer based on contextual

indicators. What are they buying elsewhereand why? What are the consumer needs

that can be identied rom lie-stage?

A well-developed strategy that recognizes

the value and potential o consumers to the

enterprise, describes that value in terms o

product-specic behavior. It communicates

across the organization in ways that allow the

dierent unctional silos to build and deliver

on channel-centric tactics, refecting both

the product and customer growth agendas.

O course, such a strategy needs to have thecommitment o all the departments within

a company and be aligned across dierent

departments, and it needs to be driven by

a clear, top-down business strategy.


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Develop an Information

Infrastructure

Select Enabling

Technologies

Restucture the

Marketing Function

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4

5

Understanding the sources o data and being

able to draw on them eectively to create

actionable insights will be key to developing

an eective inormation inrastructure.

It is impossible to strategize, plan, act and

measure results in todays multichannel

universe without data analytics and an

underlying process that recognizes the

need or dierent levels o granularity o

consumer behavior. For example, senior

executives o a company need to have an

overview o consumer behavior across

markets or brands; analysts doing product

assortment require data related to SKUs,

select customers and select stores; and

marketers may want contextual insights

into all consumers who buy diapers but

not ormula, and who respond well to a

coupon delivered at the register.

Any data inrastructure supporting this

level o granular analysis needs to be

able to integrate multiple, exclusive and

non-exclusive consumer contextspurchase

behavior, basket size, channel attitude,

product preerence, to name a ew. The

potential o big data lies in nding details

across lots o data points that can be utilized

eectively (or made actionable) in a small

data environment. Companies need to

understand which data is most critical

to their business and which data adds the

most value. For example, which products

did a consumer put in his basket but then

decide not to buy? Was a promotion

coupon redeemed?

Customer data management is steeped in

the legacy o list generation to support

direct mail, call centers, and more recently

emails. However, todays marketers must

continuously touch, infuence and engage

the customer in a timely and relevant

manner; a handul o segments are no

longer enough. More importantly, to scale

marketing infuence in real time and to

make it work, marketers need to go beyond

pushing out communications; instead, theyneed to respond to opportunities to connect

with consumers as they occur. This is easier

to achieve online through responding to

search queries. But companies should

continue to look or ways to recognize

potential customers in their store, or

even in a particular aisle, anticipating and

responding to specic needs or intent.

With no single technology able to harness

the potential o data, agility is the most

important capability businesses are chasing.

For various reasons, many organizations that

aligned their businesses to the industrial

strength solutions o technology providers,

today need to adjust their technical

inrastructure accordinglya process that

can be very cumbersome and expensive.

Many analytics leaders oer a host o

technologies, while organizations such asFacebook and Google have built their own

analytics engine that aligns closely to the

objectives o their unique business models.

To achieve an agile technical inrastructure,

leading organizations subscribe to a set o

common components:

Granular Data Warehouse

Utilized to capture non real-time

transaction data, consumer behavior, master

data and other third party complimentarydata assets. This data repository is oten

employed to democratize the data or use

across business silos.

Real Time Data Store

These real-time or near real-time big

data stores provide access to all the

timely contextual data to support point

solutions or immediate decisions such as

recommender systems or promotion at the

point o interaction with the consumer.

Next Gen Point Of Sales

Traditionally many organizations have aligned

themselves to a point o sales (POS) system an

customized it to a point where it can no longe

be supported by the original vendor or easily

migrated to a new agile system. By adopting a

integrated, agile POS technology, organization

are able to benet rom providing a seamless

experience across all ofine and online channe

as well as pricing alignment, digital receipting

and the like unctions.

Customer Insights And Analytics

Today, customer analytics technologies are

able to provide insights across a range oareas including, micro segmentation,

customer value modeling, pricing optimization

and assortment. Consequently, a business

intelligence capability is crucial or generating

specic customer-centric insights that are

aligned with the organizations business strate

Unlike a ew years ago when marketing

organizations had the luxury o planning in

yearly cycles, today they need to adapt their

marketing strategies to weeks, days or even

seconds, to stay ahead o their competitors.

From raw materials and manuacturing

to distribution and retailing, the dierent

departments within a company need to have

a 360 degree view o consumers. Marketing

will be inused across the organization

rom strategy and business planning, to

merchandizing, supply chain and customerservice, to manage the customer experience

as one.

We are entering an era o virtual everything,

where all players and channels will eectively

collaborate. Increasingly, companies will be

competing and cooperating at the same time

with one objective: to harvest maximum

customer value and share customer

requirements with other departments

within their respective companies.


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Make it personal and make it count

Todays consumers are ckle, impatient

and demanding. True or False? While it is

true that they are price-savvy and time-

pressured, consumers also respond to good

service, relevant oers and time-ecient

experiences. Consumers can be the biggest

an, broadcasting recommendations or

products and services and connecting

with brands across multiple channels and

networks. Knowing how to interact with

the consumer and committing to build the

necessary inrastructure to support those

interactions wherever, whenever they occur,

will be critical to delivering a personalized

experienceone that counts at the bottom

line. Tomorrows winners will include

companies that have the commitment and

leadership today to take the necessary steps

towards creating a proactive and customer-

centric marketing environment.

To learn more about how tomonetize a customer-centricmarketing strategy, contact:

Milton [email protected]

Seth [email protected]


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About Accenture InteractiveAccenture Interactives 1,500 proessionals help the worlds leading brands drive superiormarketing perormance across the ull multichannel customer experience. Leveragingthe ull scale o more than 259,000 Accenture employees serving clients in more than120 countries, Accenture Interactive oers integrated, industrialized and industry-drivenmarketing solutions and services across consulting, technology and outsourcing poweredby analytics. Follow @AccentureSocial or visit www.accenture.com/interactive.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcingcompany, with approximately 259,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries andbusiness unctions, and extensive research on the worlds most successul companies,Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-perormance businessesand governments. The company generated net revenues o US$27.9 billion or the fscalyear ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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