Session Intro – Future of consumer understanding

Context

On October 24th 2019, I am going to moderate a panel with experts from Google, Visa and Nielsen to discuss key trends around the future of consumer understanding at Ultimate CX Conference, Las Vegas. This is the session intro.

Consumers today are getting exposed to new ideas, new choices, new channels such that we are constantly hitting a new normal. Expanding digital connectivity in large swathes of the world and maturing digital experiences in others, is allowing more and more consumers the opportunity to embrace, voice and practice their core beliefs.

Businesses that want to survive these massive shifts need to move faster and with higher accuracy to understand evolving consumer expectations. This requires unlocking new agile ways of understanding why consumers do what they do; what they want to experience; and how those experiences will drive purchase decisions.

We are seeing new trends in measurement of consumer driven by big data and technology. However, there is sufficient uncertainty about their usability and utility. Leaders in the consumer experience and insights areas are looking for clarity on the road map towards making sense of this innovation.

360° Analytics Framework - understand the human behind the consumer

At some point in time, it would be possible to bring all the relevant faculties of measurement and data from various sources to build a comprehensive consumer behavior analytics framework. One that would have metadata from digital, transactional, emotional, neuro and other data sources, incubated in a trusted eco-system. We have got to be excited about what’s ahead.

This ‘Always On’ measurement of consumer behavior will bring faster and deeper insights to decision makers. We need to see an acceleration of tools to be able to achieve this. We also need to see resources as well as organizational structures that could enable measurement as well as seamless execution within an organization.

Eventually, this will lead us to the ultimate truth - the human truth. As @Stan Sthanunathan from Unilever and @Abigail Posner from Google believe, that that ought to be our goal. We hope to finally get to meet and understand the human behind the consumer. Once we get there, we would be able to meet the future human needs.

Way Forward – Trusted Agility

As we get into the 4th industrial revolution and new innovations ignite the customer centricity ecosystem, an organization that wishes to stay relevant, needs to redefine Business as Usual. Sound decision making still requires robust analysis based on trusted data and trusted methods. However, measurement mechanisms need to innovate to keep pace with rapid changes.