It had invested in a Customer Data Platform (CDP) but was failing to recognize value and ROI. In addition to struggling with deployment, the company needed help developing a data strategy to better connect with its consumers digitally. This was a tall order, given it was in a traditionally nondigital category and lacked first-party data.
Additionally, the objectives and use cases for the CDP were misaligned with the platform’s capabilities. Across the organization and its marketing department, there was a lack of understanding of value that could be derived from a broader data and analytics strategy, particularly one related to the offline shopper experience. These early discussions helped us reframe the original challenge and focus on broader strategic pillars and initiatives to put the organization on a more realistic path to recognizing value.
This allowed us to reposition the problem statement to focus on where gaps existed in the organization’s data and analytics strategy versus narrowly focusing on the CDP. The comprehensive discovery processes included:
We then summarized our objective current-state findings and categorized them into four areas of focus: strategy, governance, insights, and activation. We established a desired future state across each of the focus areas and worked closely with stakeholders across the organization to ensure the vision was shared and teams were aligned.
Once a “North Star” was identified, we collaborated with the organization to redefine goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. We constructed a multiyear roadmap focused on gaining fast value from existing tools while defining a long-value approach to building a more robust and scalable data strategy. We presented the 100-plus page plan to leadership and, ultimately, recommended divesting the CDP and investing instead in more relevant advertising technology tools that would achieve the organization’s objectives.
The result of our recommendation to divest the CDP led to savings of over $100K, which were redirected to increased investment in web analytics and other solutions that best served the organization’s use cases. Finally, we continued to support the client’s efforts to understand its wide range of digital audiences — shoppers, brand advocates, food service partners, and others — through the deployment of behavioral attributes that better identified users.
