The Modern Marketers Guide to Leveraging Data & MarTech is an insight packed, action- oriented Playbook. The second edition focusses on why Data and MarTech need to be looked at from the same lens to ensure that together they create great business impact. Backed by extensive research, this guide should help one in determining the best MarTech stack, while also enabling them to decide the way forward for their organisation.

Foreword

Moneka Khurana

MMA India Board Member;
Country Head - India, MMA
India

"Digital Darwinism is here to stay – Jazz leadership is the way forward".

Let me start by sharingtv some interesting data from the Gartner survey which validates the penetration of digital darwinism. Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey report shows that CMOs remain bullish on technology, and technology accounts for the largest percentage of marketing budgets at 26.2%. The Gartner research also shows that marketers use only 58% of their existing technology capabilities, which means that there is more to do with technology in the marketing sector. In light of digital darwinism as an era the need for marketing organizations to change can no longer be just a conversation, it needs action. The need to evolve is even more heightened in an era of Digital Darwinism where technology and consumers are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt .This will require us to move away from a Symphony Style of Leadership to a jazz leadership style.

There is a huge opportunity for brands to leverage data and technology for providing a great customer experience. Martech and data can help unlock deep customer insights to improve marketing effectiveness.

The Modern Marketers guide to MarTech and data attempts to decode this changing transformation of marketing today and the increasing role played by data and technology.

Here are some interesting highlights from Data Maturity survey which was carried out and is an integral part of this handbook as well.

Around 13% of the organizations come under the ‘Unaware’ category, which is the initial nascent stage of data maturity. 27% of the organizations come under the ‘Reactive’ category, which means that, while they might have a proper data collection strategy in place, they now must focus on implementing a data quality architecture.
While Descriptive analytics has become hygiene in most industries, E-Commerce & Retail, Financial services and Telecom are much ahead as far as implementation of Predictive & Prescriptive analytics is concerned. 45% of the companies in E-Commerce & Retail leverage a healthy combination of Descriptive, Predictive as well as Prescriptive analytics for decision making.
60% of the E-commerce & Retail companies were leveraging data for providing a Connected Customer Experience, way ahead of other industries.
Most of the organizations have 25% to 75% data aggregated in unified Datamart. However many organizations lack the clarity of how unified data can help in improving connected customer experience.
Lack of skills is seen as the topmost challenge to data adoption across the industries. This is an area where significant emphasis is required.

With the above datapoints as context the playbook will enable you to bridge the observed gaps and provide direction to build a suitable martech and data framework for your organisation given that CX is the biggest driver of brand stickiness, and customers expect an omnichannel experience like never before however there is no one size fits all as different organizations are at different levels of data and MarTech maturity. The playbook acts as a guide for marketers to select the ideal MarTech stack based on stage of maturity.

Marketers today are looking to use technology to solve complex business challenges like providing a seamless connected customer experience. There is also an increased appreciation and understanding of issues like data protection and respecting privacy of individuals. MarTech as a space is clearly maturing across industries

Data is at the core of this and when leveraged efficiently across the organization, can create impact across all key areas of the organization.

The evolution of data and technology has changed the way businesses operate forever. MarTech tools are shifting towards being software-centric, which is eventually about automating the process and saving time for marketers.

So I hope you take away valuable nuggets from this playbook to accelerate your journey in martech and data whilst web 3.0 is already knocking at your door and is here to stay which in turn will require a more elevator pitch to the customer and without the right martech and data stacks it will pose an array of challenges and can even lead to brands turning obsolete in absence of not keeping pace with it .

Neeraj Pratap Sangani

Chief Executive Offiicer,
Hansa Cequity

"It takes a lot of hard work to make your customers life easy."

The last couple of years have been cathartic for businesses and society in general. People have reimagined their lives, their purpose, their business models, their beliefs, their relationships - the list goes on. Life and consequently everything else has become fragile. In business, threats are emerging on a daily basis, but so are opportunities. It is unclear how new disruptions will impact business. The relative ease and speed with which consumers have adapted to the tectonic changes highlights the urgency for all businesses to better prepare for future turbulence.

An organization’s ability to deal with this uncertainty, will shape their future. Data and MarTech projects are interdisciplinary and collaborative, but very few organizations and senior leaders understand or act on this with any urgency. Today everyone talks about delivering a connected customer experience, but a customer experience is not only about MarTech and automation. It is equally about the data availability, quality, architecture and much more. Both, Data and MarTech need to work in unison to deliver a superlative customer experience. I keep saying – it takes a lot of hard work to make your customer’s life easy.

The fact is that the business of marketing has changed forever. Data and MarTech together are a potent combination to enable customer experience driven business impact. The longevity of a brand will be defined by how quickly and consistently it is able to reinvent itself to stay relevant. Technology has had a telling impact on the business itself so how could marketing have stayed behind? Technology and data driven cultures will drive business transformation and the modern marketer will have to be at the forefront of it.

There has to be a newness and ‘nowness’ to the modern marketers thought process while working on the brand and marketing strategy. Data driven marketing and AI driven algos will certainly help marketers navigate the uncertain times much better and deliver outcome-based personalization at scale. Marketers having the ability to connect the dots and evolve a structured, layered, and measurable approach using all the relevant data points and new technologies without getting overwhelmed, will thrive. Marketers will have to get comfortable being uncomfortable while dealing with the unknown.

The Modern Marketers Guide to Leveraging Data & MarTech is an insight packed, action-oriented Playbook. The second edition focusses on why Data and MarTech need to be looked at from the same lens to ensure that together they create great business impact. It is curated based on more than 15 years of experience that Hansa Cequity has in the real world of helping large organizations across industries build a data driven marketing practice and implementing large MarTech projects for conglomerates, large organisations, and digital-first brands. The Guide also takes into account the current state of Data & MarTech maturity in India through an extensive survey conducted in the months of March and April 2022.

The Modern Marketers Guide to leveraging Data & MarTech not only highlights the challenges thrown up by the explosion of data, but also provides a well thought through framework that is required to evaluate the role of tools at different stages of evolution. Some of the best minds at Hansa Cequity and the MMA MarTech Council have actively contributed to put the second edition of the Playbook together. I am sure you will find a lot of answers and practical solutions that you are looking for in this Guide.