Steven M.

Customer data is a board imperative today. Web3 promises the decentralization of customer data from major technology platforms like Google, creating a robust knowledge based through your customer data will leapfrog your competitions. There are key benefits of incorporate your customer feedback into your business planning: 1) Coupled your customer feedback (qualitative) with your quantitative data to identify the unmet and unknown customer needs. 2) These new customer understandings will refine new product and service innovation strategy, refining your existing marketing and advertising, commerce and CRM strategies. 3) Your AI strategy needs highest definition of your customer data. Treat your customer feedback as most valuable gifts.

Customer data is truly the new currency for growing your business and winning your customers’ hearts. Customers today expect you to know who they are, what they have purchased, how they used your products / services. With the fading of cookies, and the rise of web3 (decentralized of customer data), customer data is a board imperative for accelerate growth of your digital commerce. Here are a few thoughts about new customer data: 1) Focus on capturing both the why’s and the what’s of your customer purchased. 2) Leverage your customer data to understand how to connect to your audience emotionally. 3) Embrace Artificial Intelligence to stitch and enrich your customer data continuously across departments, channels and partners.

To unlock business growth and grow your loyal customer base, we must understand the trifecta of your 3C’s (Communications, Commerce, and CRM) and the synchronicity of all related strategies. Communication needs to focus on connecting your target audience's emotional needs to your products/services. Commerce is about creating a frictionless customer experience from consideration to purchase. CRM (customer relationship management) is about surrounding your customers with value. It is not a post-sales activity, it is the core of your business.

In my experience, I have found the following approach helpful for effective executive communication: 1) Individual Alignment: align your functional / business leaders with your strategy by understanding their motivations and goals. Discuss how their individual contributions will assist the overall performance of the business 2) Collective Alignment: bringing the team together and discussing trade-offs and adjustments to establish a collective consensus and definition of the overall business objectives and outcomes 3) Opened Communications: frequently, openly, and consistently at all levels 4) Continuous Refinement: establish frequent checkpoints and feedback individually and collectively

Throughout the years, I have learned that having empathy & inclusive thinking and creating movements are critical success factors for building trust in today's rapidly changing world. Empathy: practice active listening with your teams, and ensure you understand the context and why Inclusive thinking: include your key team members in your decision-making process. Ensure your team understands your objectives and strategic business outcomes. In short, bring your team along with you. Creating movement: focus your implementation strategies on progression over perfection. Generate incremental changes and business growth. These progressive results will enable the momentum of your business for others to follow.

Brand building is complicated and challenging but also exciting. We are witnessing a trifecta of firsts in our marketing ecosystems: 1) Rapidly evolving economies 2) An unprecedented acceleration in technology such as Generative AI 3) Unapologetic consumer expectations of brand promise To combat these Trifecta, executives must: 1) build an inclusive & experimental innovation culture that enables experimenting with new ideas at a speed like never before 2) capture and harness your inclusive customer data to identify unknown customer needs 3) obsessed with surrounding your customer with value Culture is moving faster than ever before thanks to technology – and winning brands must be courageous and committed to embracing change.