It only took me minutes from arriving in Orlando to understand just how important consumers are to the local economy. As we heard from Alex Martins of Orlando Magic earlier today, there are a lot of businesses competing for the consumer's "entertainment dollar." Of course, it is also important to bear in mind that entertainment spending is discretionary spending - folks can choose not only who to spend money with, but whether to spend it at all - especially in the current economic climate.

Few people  would disagree that a customer revolution is taking place as customers demand superior engagement, personalisation and value. As a result, marketing can no longer be defined in traditional terms or contained within the marketing function, but instead must be designed to consider – and enhance – the customer experience throughout the organisation. In order to thrive in this customer-empowered digital world, organisations must embrace a customer-centred journey that elevates the role of customer insight, creates highly relevant engagement, and ultimately produces loyal advocates, brand value and growth. To meet the challenge, marketing is becoming as much science as art, utilising analytics to most effectively understand customers to identify and seize profitable growth opportunities quickly and efficiently.

So I was really excited to see hear the views of three senior marketers today at The Premier Business Leadership Series and how they work to make their organisations stand out from the crowd. The panel consisted of Jim Davis, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, SAS; Scott Hudgins, Vice President of Customer Managed Relationships, the Walt Disney Company; Paula Puleo, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Michaels Stores and the panel host was Tom Davenport, author of Analytics at Work and Competing on Analytics, and Research Director of the International Institute for Analytics.

Kicking off the discussion, Tom Davenport asked the panel to give their views on the changes in marketing -- and sited the results of an audience poll which showed 58 percent of attendees think that understanding customer relationships across multiple channels was the most important challenge they face at the moment.

Paula talked about how Michaels can use new channels and media and create insights to maintain a conversation with the customers who are by their nature, creative. Jim echoed this for the B2B space. Social media is a great way of listening to your customers. Scott also said that Disney sees social as another way of listening, although it does present challenges in real-time, to which he cautioned that sometimes you need to take a breath before responding, to which Paula agreed - sometimes your customers can be your best advocates on social media - so you need to know when to get out of the way (rather than try to "manage" the conversation). Jim talked about social media as a mirror to the organisation, but in a blended channel environment this does not necessarily indicate what you should do with that insight.

Turning to analytics for social media, Davis discussed that it is not easy to build taxonomies that reflect differences in geographies, industries, or even culture. For example, the word "bad" can mean both bad and good - depending upon context. Paula said Michaels is listening to social channels within the context of the wider business and just beginning to start to promote via social. Scott said that Disney is in a similar position to Michaels - evolving their strategy. However, according to Jim, social media analysis can be a game-changer. It gives businesses the ability to address a problem before it becomes a crisis (we all know examples of where one unhappy customer can lead a social media backlash against a business).

Disney is totally focused on knowing their customers well enough that they can respond and be relevant in the right time and via the right place. Using analytics, Disney tries to anticipate  the needs of their customer to reduce the number of communications but increase the relevance (and therefore the impact) of each of their interactions. "Relationships are a core part of our business strategy," said Scott.

Paula also expressed how their focus on the customer does not come at the cost of abandoning the traditional KPIs, but it informs their decision-making process. It builds the customer into their business process. She also says she needs this information on the Sales and Margin levers that drives a retail business; she knows what works and what needs to be changed. It is also a framework for the business to hold a conversation that integrates everyone in their business (using reliable data to deliver a single version of the truth).

In the business-to-business space, Jim shared insights that whether you are B2B or B2C, you still need to understand preference; It's not just about the "next best offer." Paula added about how her team is using the customer database to ask, "what would our customers want Michaels to know about them and why?" Take the lead from customer in how to make it easy for the customer to do business with the organisation. Disney uses this information to optimise the relationship with the customer - it's good for them and it's good for the business.

The new era of marketing requires new skills; it's not just about the technology - culture and skills are vital to building a fact-based decision-making company. One great tip from Disney is to tell the insights of the Analytics with stories based on examples of customers. According  to Paula, this has to lead to "actions and outcomes."

All the panelists agreed that privacy concerns need to be addressed, but perhaps the conversation should be more about trust - building and maintaining trust goes a long way to negate concerns about privacy. Paula also said that CRM is all about trust, the measures need to include trust measures (like unsubscribes). Each negative outcome is potentially an indicator that something is going wrong in that relationship or trust through relevance. Davis also noted that we have to be open about the value of this data - if the ratio is right, consumers may be more willing to share more personal information. It's also noteworthy that consumers can use social media to give feedback on what they think about whether that trust relationship stands up to scrutiny. According to Paula, trust is earned, so don't ask customers to tell you everything about them on the first transaction: deliver value, show you can be trusted and grow the level of dialogue and trust.

Michaels does not just react to social media, they plan and sequence it into their timelines (including seasonality, school schedules, new product launches, etc.). Tom and Scott shared their understanding that a 'like' does not necessarily mean a purchasing intention and certainly not a permission to sell to me. Also influence has to be taken into account - not just about how active a social commentator is, but how widely they are followed.

In summary, social media and the new era of customer experience presents both challenges and opportunities; which it will be for any given organisation will largely come down to whether they have the right skills, culture and systems to blend these new channels into the heart of the business; marketers need to be right in the centre of this dialogue.