The Future of Customer Data Platforms - Futurum Tech Podcast Interview Series

On this special edition of The Futurum Tech Podcast - Interview Series host Daniel Newman welcomes Satish Thomas, Director of Product Management for Microsoft Dynamics 365 to discuss data, marketing technology, and customer insights in our current situation.

 

Data Is Everything

 

Our world is undergoing a fundamental change. Data is coming out of everything and everywhere. When customers call your company, use your product, interact with your social media posts, visit your website, they are creating a data profile about themselves. A customer Data Platform (CDP) takes all this previously siloed data and combines it to create a 360-degree view of the customer. When done well, it can be used to fuel personalized experiences across sales and marketing departments.

 

Four Key Pillars of a Customer Data Platform

 

CDPs are gaining popularity as companies realize the value that they bring. Satish and the team at Microsoft have identified four key pillars of a CDP that make it effective. First, it is critical to have a vendor-agnostic view. You should be able to bring in data from every source regardless of vendor and schematize it. Then once you have all of the data collected and you've created this unified view of the customer, the second pillar is to be able to enrich the data from other sources. This involves giving the data context which is crucial for the third and fourth pillars.

 

The third pillar brings in AI. It's one thing to bring all the data together, it's another thing to be able to identify the next best step. AI allows you to make decisions based on the data. The final pillar is how can you drive actions with these decisions. How can you power your business processes with this data.

 

The Myths and Misconceptions Surrounding CDP

 

As CDPs grow in popularity, Microsoft has found several myths and misconceptions that customers have regarding the technology. These range from the simple to the more complex. It's Satish's goal to eliminate these misconceptions and educate business decision-makers on how a CDP can impact their business. These are a few that he sees regularly:

 

• Vendor Lock-in. Many people assume that having a CDP from one vendor means you can only collect data from that vendor's sources. Microsoft Dynamics 365 runs on a vendor-agnostic view meaning data from any source and any vendor can be collected.
• Just for Marketing. While CDPs started out as a piece of marketing technology, today Microsoft sees use cases across the enterprise in sales, marketing, and service.
• It Takes a Long Time. Microsoft has worked to eliminate the misconception that it takes a long time to get a CDP up and running. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a SaaS application that can launch within a few months if they have a refined process or plan in place.
• Have to Rip and Replace. Most customers assume that when you start working with a CDP that you have to rip out and replace existing processes and other applications. That is not the case with Microsoft. Dynamics 365 works with other applications and can be built on existing processes.

 

Vision for the Future

 

If you look at CDPs today, getting that 360-degree of the customer is great, but there's more that can be done. The fact that you have a unified data view of the customer makes it easier to leverage AI. Satish believes that AI and ML will be the next frontier with CDPs. There's power in putting your data to work. There's power in having your data take shape in a system and then being able to make decisions and create actions from that data.

 

This is an interesting time in the world and companies have an unprecedented opportunity to hit the pause button and refocus their efforts on digitally transforming. If you're interested in learning more about the Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer insights platform be sure to check out their website and listen to the full podcast here. While you're at it be sure to hit subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode.

 

This podcast is part of a special series focused around what leaders and companies are doing to help employees and customers deal with COVID-19. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss out on amazing insights.