Marketers confounded by mounting data: CMO Council

SINGAPORE: There is such a thing as too much research, at least according to marketers surveyed by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

Asia-Pacific organisations lag behind those in the US and Europe in their ability to extract insights from multiple internal and external databases, says the recently released report.

The marketers studied report being “overwhelmed by growing volumes of customer data emanating from research, retail, Internet, social media, financial, company help desks/call centers, and internal line of business sources”, according to the study authors.

When it comes to improving the customer experience through better market listening, responsiveness, and leveraging of data and actionable insights, most of the region’s senior marketers felt they were not there yet, but working toward it. It is definitely considered a key area of focus and priority, but the ability to execute internally against the end goal is still in question.

The survey covered more than 30 marketers across banks, insurance companies, mobile network providers, utilities, media and hospitality companies in Southeast Asia, China, Australia and New Zealand.

In 2011, just 26 per cent of marketers surveyed globally said they leveraged customer data and analytics while 13 per cent said they intergrated both online and offline customer insights.

Of the Asian marketers surveyed, more than 50 per cent claimed that diversity and complexity of customer markets in Asia are their biggest challenge.

 “The Asia-Pacific region is doing business on a massive scale, and our marketing members see real value in using high-performance data analytics to be more targeted, personal, and timely in their communications,” explained Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. Most marketers are also grappling with corporate cultures that are more product-centric, according to the report. “Information technology needs to integrate with marketing to meet the needs of the customer,” Donovan added.

Conversely, more than 55 per cent of marketers in Asia expect to use improved customer segmentation and targeting to increase the value of marketing spends in 2012. While 38 per cent of respondents are planning transformational initiatives around customer data and analytics.