Building the Right Platform With the Right Data at the Right Time

I enjoyed participating in a recent Six-Five Summit roundtable discussion moderated by Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Daniel Newman of Futurum, alongside Alysa Taylor , Corporate Vice President, Business Applications and Global Industry of Microsoft, and James Watters , CTO, Modern Application Platforms of VMware. We discussed two of the biggest technology considerations for businesses going forward: platforms, and data. Here are a couple of my takeaways from the discussion.

Agile Platforms

The term platform has become a popular buzzword, and it often means different things to different people. To me, platforms should provide the flexibility to change as business conditions change. Speaking to that point, James Watters noted that the pandemic has ushered in a more 'velocity-oriented environment,' This means that businesses will need to become more agile to keep up with customer demands for much faster and more relevant service.

That said, no platform, no matter how many bells and whistles it may have, will be any good without good data and good data practices. Platforms should make it possible for companies to use data from all parts of the business and apply artificial intelligence to that data in ways that provide front-line staff and decision-makers with actionable insights.

Now that AI is coming of age, AI will play a massive role in the future of data and how businesses use it. Yet, Alysa Taylor and I agreed that AI failed, at some level, to live up to some of its promises at the worst possible time. Indeed, there was no shortage of companies eager to adopt AI for their platforms, and cloud computing provided the underpinnings of a platform; however, the real magic of AI occurs when the algorithms can work against a complete and holistic set of customer data. Platforms of the future will need to maximize all available data and provide appropriate suggestions to users based on their industry.

Use cases will indeed differ. Someone in retail will need their platform to suggest upselling options based on past purchase history and other relevant interactions concerning a customer they have on the line – while they still have them on the line.

In manufacturing, a service agent should suggest alternate shipping options that could help their customer circumvent delays caused by geopolitical events or natural or man-made disasters.

Third-Party Data

We also discussed customer data in the context of consent. The existence of third-party brokers has allowed businesses to collect data without permission from the people whose data was being collected.

This is changing as the regulatory environment catches up and consumers express their understandable resentment of these data acquisition practices. That's probably for the best, as we move to an era where consumers and businesses can happily co-exist in an era of consensual data exchange. Ultimately, companies will need to up their game to maintain, interpret, and proactively use data from their customers and prospects, rather than letting many valuable data molder away in some archaic silo.

Tapping into first-party data provides businesses with a more accurate source for marketing insights is ultimately a more human-centric approach to collecting data. In my mind, first-party data is the best way to ensure long-lasting relationships with customers. One thing is for sure: the third-party data collection safety net is going away.

Towards the end of our discussion, James Watters noted that customers are a moving target because their needs are constantly shifting. I couldn't agree more, and I'd add that data is how we pinpoint their needs in time and place, and the platform is how we understand and – hopefully – meet their needs.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section – how is your transition to a more human-centric approach to data collection going? Let me know if I can help.