REPORT

Profitable customer relationships are the lifeblood of any commercial enterprise. Yet companies do a decidedly poor job of nurturing, cultivating or even reactivating customers in order to drive sustained revenue growth, loyalty and bottom line performance. Marketers are flying blind when it comes to leveraging customer data and analytics. Few companies look within their own data silos to extract insight and intelligence that can reveal which customers – existing, departed or dormant – can generate greater value and profi tability. With little insight into this wealth of customer knowledge, most companies spend marketing dollars on campaigns that bring in the wrong type of customers and do little to monetize or retain the most valuable relationships.

Marketing operational models are becoming increasingly complex and more crucial to the strategic success of global businesses, but are facing significant challenges from entrenched corporate cultures, inter-departmental politics, and a lack of adequate data and information systems. According to new research, marketers fear they will be unable to implement the needed marketing platforms and automated processes required to effectively support strategic growth initiatives. Calibrate How You Operate reveals that global marketing executives are challenged by a lack of corporate mandate for alignment and integration. Some 41 percent of the 400-plus marketers audited point to siloed data and limited cross-functional feedback loops as major internal challenges subverting the marketing operational process.