INTERVIEW

“Customer centricity has always been the anchor for marketing,” Jones says. “Nowadays, with all of the technologies at our fingertips, CMOs have much more insight into the customer journey. We have access to live data and can instantly understand whether or not we have a big hit on our hands. That data gives us the agility to continually iterate and refine our campaigns to personalize to our customer needs.”

To enable an amazing customer experience, it is key to have a marketing organization that is data driven. This is an essential skill that SAP finds critical for its employees’ future success and growth in this digital economy. Jones emphasizes the importance of facilitating development and training programs to expand the team’s core capabilities to best serve the company.

“We now have to truly become part artist and part scientist to ensure that we can make decisions based on facts,” Jones explains.

“We must also know how to talk to our key stakeholders using data as the driver for those conversations. The credibility of our data is based on the fact that it comes from one source. This ensures C-level alignment, whether in sales or IT.”