The Data-Centric Organization

The move to embrace data as a centerpiece of the marketing and media effort—and to become truly “data-centric” across all facets of the enterprise—raises a series of questions: How should organizations reinvent themselves to support data-driven approaches to marketing and media? Where should they prioritize their investments to ensure greatest impact? And what kind of progress has the industry made toward these objectives?

In this groundbreaking research paper from Winterberry Group, and sponsored in part by Merkle, readers will learn what attempts to transform in to data-centric organizations look like in theory and in practice. Download The Data-Centric Organization today.

Key Takeaways

Though strategies to promote data-centricity are in full force—and will continue to represent a dominant priority among marketing and media organizations over the coming year—few organizations have yet to achieve meaningful results from their efforts at data-centered business transformation.
Though marketing and media organizations are looking to engage audience data to support a wide array of use cases, the hierarchy of those applications is steadily shifting.
Data users and their supply chain partners agree: few organizations have either the depth or breadth of talent they need to derive full value from their data-driven initiatives, particularly when it comes to leveraging analytics as a driver of audience insights.
Standing in the way of business transformation: organizational silos and other internal process issues that hinder data access and sharing.
As they look to significantly ramp up their investments in technology, data and service-driven solutions over the next several years, data users are looking for their third-party partners to elevate their support for the strategic functions underlying such investments—calling for a renewed focus on business case development, technology assessment and holistic system alignment as elements of a comprehensive approach to “data-centricity.”
Going forward, data users are also likely to look to their supply chain partners to play a more active role in supporting their day-to-day marketing and media objectives—in particular, by helping leverage analytics to deliver strategic and campaign-level insights.