Managing Data in the clouds

Joe Mckendrik has an interesting perspective on this topic:

More companies are emphasizing their ability to compete on analytics, and the ability to integrate and leverage enterprise data is key. Whether on-site or in the cloud, effective data integration is a must.

As cloud computing engagements increase in sophistication and edge ever closer to the mission-critical core of the enterprise, recognition is growing that there are enterprise data management issues that still need to be worked out. “Our belief is that cloud computing or on-demand computing is simply a way of further fragmenting data, because customers are absolving themselves from responsibility for the management, storage, security, and backup and recovery of the availability of that data,” Chris pointed out. However, he emphasized, “you must never, ever, absolve responsibility for the quality and the ownership of the data, and having such quality and ownership as part of your core business processes. And that requires integration.”

As Informatica’s Ron Papas put it, technically, there isn’t a lot of difference between on-site systems and data stores and cloud-managed systems and data stores. However, there’s a big difference in the ownership of these applications:

“What’s that’s doing is it’s bypassing the traditional process of having IT design the whole integration processes into the solution. So, before you know it, you could be up and running with Salesforce.com without having put much thought into integration, because it’s really being led by the line of business side. You could have someone in the sales and marketing unit that somehow bypassed IT and went up and implemented Salesforce. All of a sudden, they realize they need access to that data. they need it synchronized.”

Delivering Customer Experience – Good news & bad news

1-to-1 Media has some interesting perspectives on the challenges companies face to deliver a seamless customer experience. Take a look:

What do you believe is your organizations biggest hurdle in delivering an excellent customer experience?
Departmental silos 35.2%
Commitment from the top 17.0%
Recruitment and training 15.9%
Technology 14.8%
Focus on reducing operational cost 10.2%
Lack of investment 6.8%

…..how well customer-centricity has permeated their organizations. On the good news side, the majority of attendees work in organizations that think delivering an outstanding customer experience is everyone’s job. The bad news: 5 percent actually have no one responsible for ensuring that customers have a positive experience.

Who is responsible for customer experience in your organization?
Everyone 64.6%
All front line employees 15.2%
Contact centre employees 7.1%
Customer experience team 8.1%
No one 5.1%

How would you rate your company’s performance against its competitors in terms of customer experience?
Much better 12.3%
Better 32.9%
The same 38.4%
Not quite as good 13.7%
Worse 2.7%

Interesting, right?

Automotive Loyalty – A huge challenge

Automotive customer loyalty at the manufacturer level has dropped by 9.2 percentage points, from 49.1% in 1998 to 39.9% in 2008, and costing some automakers more than US$3 billion in annual sales, according to a study by Experian.

Loyalty challenge
“However, the increased number of available manufacturers and models make engendering customer loyalty a bigger challenge than ever before,” Waldron warned. “Automakers that have a firm understanding of what drives their customers to remain loyal will have a significant competitive advantage in such a challenging market.”

The company suggests that even a small rise in customer loyalty can lead to significant increases in revenue. For example, a manufacturer with 10 million current customers will have approximately 1.5 million of those customers return to market in a given year. A 1 percentage point rise in customer loyalty would produce 15,000 additional annual sales, or approximately US$405 million in additional revenue (based on an average vehicle sale price of US$27,000).

But if that same manufacturer could improve loyalty performance by the 9.2 percentage points lost since 1998, it would generate an additional US$3.726 billion in annual sales.

50 Golden brands that made a difference to the marketing world

1959 was the year The Marketing Society was founded and the birth of modern marketing. Today, The Marketing Society is the most influential network of senior marketers dedicated to championing marketing in the UK.

Selecting a brand for each of the past 50 years was not easy. Their shortlist was assembled using a variety of different criteria. Which brands were launched, relaunched or revamped? Who was winning awards? Who were the top spenders and the top sellers? And which brands encapsulated the zeitgeist of the year?

Take a look