Harvard Business Review in 2021 [Ref.: ‘Why Is It So Hard to Become a Data-Driven Company?’ by Randy Bean, February 2021] brought out a survey of Fortune 1000 senior executives, which reveals that the companies are struggling against deciding on a legacy tech to manage their data.

Leaders were recommended to focus their data initiatives on clearly identified high-impact use cases and reconsider how their organizations handle data

Many organizations wish to collect a lot of customer data but then are not clear of the next steps in using this data.

In cases where the goal of such an organization is to collect the data and outsource it for further use, they should consider getting a Tag Management System (TMS) or a Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) to simplify the
data collection job.

However, if the purpose is not simply limited to data collection but also to do performance monitoring and reporting, in that case, they should also consider building a dashboard out of the data collection.

If your organization already owns the bulk of the customer data but is unaware of the next useful steps towards growing business by utilizing this data, in that case, the first step is to identify your main goal.

If you wish to utilize this data in governance, consider a Master Data Management (MDM) and CIAM to fulfill such needs.

If you want to manage campaigns, use a omni-channel. The organization must opt for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or a Consent & Preference Management Platform (CPMP) if the objective is to carry out Lead scoring or to have consent collection & compliance.

By utilizing all such technologies, organizations must evaluate if they are getting value from such solutions. If they are already getting value, they should seek a process or service-related solution by utilizing such technologies.

In case the organization is not seeing much value proposition out of such technologies, they must review and evaluate the organizational need of the data against the key features of a Data cloud: Data collection, Profile unification, Segmentation, and Activation.

If such an evaluation brings out that the key organizational challenge is related to any of these features of a Data cloud, the organization must consider getting a Data cloud.

In the context of a Data cloud, data collection refers to the ability to ingest first-party, individual-level customer data from multiple sources, online and offline, in real-time and without limits on storage. Profile unification is the ability to consolidate profiles at the person level and connect attributes to identities.

Segmentation is an interface that enables the rule-based creation and management of segments. Activation is the ability to send segments with instructions to engagement tools for different types of digital marketing campaigns.