Know Your Customer, Grow Your Business

By Mark Brousseau

The business intelligence that used to be confined to marketing is now spreading as organizations align themselves around a common vision, John Santaferraro, director, industry solutions, HP said during a presentation today at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 in Washington, D.C.

“Customers are so bombarded by messages that what worked to attract them seven or 10 years ago, no longer is effective,” Santaferraro told attendees. “How we are getting customers’ attention is very different. And it changes the way that we look at business intelligence, and the way that we look at customers. Historically, most business intelligence has been in marketing. But the strategies and product plans that companies put together must also leverage business intelligence. Companies need to figure out how to harness everything they know to differentiate themselves from the competition.”

The challenge, Santaferraro said, is that both customer data and customer business intelligence exist in silos at most companies. To solve this, a lot of companies are launching customer data integration projects that unify information across the boundaries of an organization. “They are looking at using unified business intelligence across all departments to drive performance,” Santaferraro said. “This is completely different from the way that most corporate systems are architected today.”

“This connected intelligence opens the door for new customer innovation. It also connects front-office decisions with back-office operations. And it connects a business to new opportunities,” Santaferraro said. Leveraging business intelligence in this way will have far greater impact on a company, he added.

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