As enterprises around the world are doing their best to navigate what IDC is calling the “perfect storm of economic, political, and social disruption,” digital-first leaders that show value creation that’s based on effective use of innovative technologies are best positioned to weather the storm.
So, it’s no surprise that customer data and customer data platforms (CDPs) were front and center at IDC Directions 2023 , the firm’s 58th annual conference focused on using tech to scale the digital business.
According to IDC, 50 percent of the G2000 will adopt CDPs as the enterprise customer data service for real-time customer interactions by next year. The firm also forecasts that the CDP market will also grow to surpass $5.7 billion by 2026.
What value do these investments in customer data hold? From data growth, to trust and privacy, here were some highlights and takeaways from IDC’s annual event.
Customer Data as a Revenue Engine
According to Marci Maddox, research vice president of customer experience strategies, only 34 percent of enterprises are currently using customer data across all applications in the organization.
Given inflation, a looming recession, and high customer expectations, enterprises really don’t have much wiggle room to provide a bad customer experience. These numbers prove that customer data is still very much siloed.
Maddox stressed that consumers want to effortlessly move across channels and have a seamless customer experience. It’s up to brands to take the steps needed to use data to understand customer data relationships. Using a CDP across different business functions can help define customer data relationships at scale.
Using CX Insights to Fuel Profitable Growth
Customer data is expanding rapidly. However, there is a disconnect in the data value gap. According to Sudhir Rajagopal, research director, future of customer experience, only 16 percent of organizations say they find value from more than 75 percent of all data collected across all sources.
Rajagopal says enterprises can maximize business value by orchestrating whole journey experiences. This will require tapping into customers’ engagement with the brand, employees, and partners across the ecosystem.
“If you are not focused on business outcomes, you are not able to bring value,” Rajagopal said.
Improve CX and ROI with a Customer Data Platform
CDP adoption has grown rapidly as firms across industries, sizes, and business models shift to omnichannel customer profiles driven by zero-and-first-party data to improve the customer experience.
As the main CDP analyst at IDC, David Wallace, research director, customer data and analytics, predicts that by next year, “CDPs will grow up to be customer data services, using data streams and AI to improve each interaction, thus improving CX metrics by 10-55 percent for G2000 firms.”
By 2024, at least 30% of organizations will introduce success metrics to track and measure the internal and external flows of customer data.
Some of his guidance for CDP buyers when evaluating CDP vendors is to match CDP capabilities to its user base and core purpose. CDP vendors should also focus on creating new customer-centric metrics for data.
In short, organizations need to lean into leveraging customer data across departments to drive business value. Given the current global and economic state, brands don’t have time to waste, and must deliver value to their customers and offer exceptional experience.
