I have been looking very much forward to sharing my thoughts and insights on marketing with you. In my everyday life as a business advisor at SAS Institute, I am in constant dialog with marketers in various industries. Here on the blog I will try to elaborate on relevant marketing topics – based on both business practice and academic thoughts.

This first post is related to the rising expectations of consumers and customers and the increasing importance of customer experience and analytics in the companies’ efforts to stay competitive. It is encouraging to see that customer centricity today is at the heart of the agenda for most CEO‘s and that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is perceived as a key player at the strategic level.

Still, it is not just plain and easy or anything like it. With the exceeding amount of customer touch points and the maturity of the digital arena in general, customer centricity is a complex size to handle. As the CMO becomes more involved in the formulation of strategies, he/she also experiences more pressure. He/she needs to be able to follow these strategies through and actually ensure that the final customer experience is consistent and meets expectations.

A holistic view on customer engagement
In my view, we can help the CMO tremendously if we increase his/her access to knowledge about customer engagement and the underlying processes across the organization. We need to utilize the power of marketing analytics to turn these insights into actual decision support that is managed throughout the organization. In order for this practice to have practical value, it needs to be a holistic view that delivers input at both a strategic, tactical, and operational level.

With more accessible customer insight – combined with our knowledge about what it takes to create internal alignment – it is possible to provide the CMO with an overview and control. Thereby, we can establish the necessary decision support for both the development and execution of customer-centric strategies.

I would like to hear your thoughts about the topic. You can also find me on Twitter JM:@mkt_advisor.