Singapore and Hong Kong, February 16, 2015 – International Data Corporation (IDC) announces today that this year customer experience will become the number one customer-related priority for organizations in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) or APEJ. However, the CMO and CIO will need to partner and align their goals to guarantee success.
“Today, being first to market, having the lowest price, or being the best does not necessarily help. Businesses need to be agile and give customers what they want 24/7. Customers may buy your products or services, but what keeps them coming back is the experience” says Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, Senior Program Manager, Big Data, Analytics, Enterprise Applications & Social Lead IDC Asia/Pacific.
He advises marketers to become savvier about the business, data, and customers to address the “empowered buyer” needs. CMOs are expected to lead the enterprise transformation around customer experience. In fact, IDC Asia/Pacific CMO Barometer shows that 31% of CMO roles are expanding to include customer experience and support.
Jimenez notes, “The CMO role is evolving to incorporate new responsibilities. In other regions, we have seen organizations completely replacing this role with a Customer Experience Head.”
There is no denying there has been a lot of hype around customer experience and many organizations still struggle with the concept, since there are many moving pieces and intangibles. However, customer experience is far from being just today’s buzzword; it is a top priority for CMOs in 2015.
“If you are not already thinking about this then you are not listening to your customers. The idea of delivering greater experiences is not new; but what is different now is that organizations are increasingly focused on ensuring these initiatives are tracked and are using metrics that are closely aligned to the business.” says Jimenez
IDC AP CMO Barometer shows that the top three key performance indicators (KPIs) for marketing departments in 2015 are:
- increasing market share (66%),
- improving marketing processes — particularly measuring effectiveness (60%)
- increasing customer satisfaction ratings/ Net promoter score (NPS) (55%)
“The road is going to be bumpy since growing data silos are still a major challenge for many organizations. This is stopping them from really knowing their customers and fulfilling their expectations. To be successful they will need to partner with the CIO. CMOs and CIOs need to establish common goals and define shared KPIs that can help them track the success of their joint initiatives,” adds Jimenez.
Also, according to the IDC Asia/Pacific CMO Barometer, to achieve its KPIs CMOs have identified 3 key IT requirements for 2015: investing in disruptive technologies that can help gain competitive edge (25%), enabling a multi-channel environment (16%), and driving improved marketing automation and productivity (13%).
“But don’t expect to achieve this just by making technology investments. First and foremost, ‘Starters’ need to define their goals (with quantifiable metrics), as well as assess if their organizations’ customer service culture is well aligned to their customers’ priorities. Then, look at their processes (internal and external), people (skills) and technology,” Jimenez recommends.
More insights on Social and Marketing priorities and challenges are revealed in the following report, “IDC Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Social and Marketing 2015 Top 10 Predictions”.
Provided below is the list of the top 10 APEJ social and marketing predictions for 2015.
- Data-driven approaches will dictate CMOs’ investments in 2015, as marketing becomes measured by customer outcomes.
- Business-to-business (B2B) buyers will increasingly leverage social networks for buying support. Investments in Social selling programs and tools will differentiate leaders from followers.
- Customer experience will become the number one customer-related priority in 2015 — Programs will drive investments in people, processes, and technology.
- Customer experience will drive increased collaboration across enterprise functions and the organizations’ ecosystem. Investments in online communities will gain momentum.
- Messaging apps will play a key role in the marketing mix as these continue to add business-to-consumer (B2C) capabilities.
- The focus on customer experience as the leading driver for digital transformation will drive increased CMO investments in CRM and Analytics. CMO + CIO alignment will be critical for project success.
- eCommerce will generate over US$3 trillion in 2015.
- Growing data silos and the lack of a well-defined strategy and metrics will be the top challenges impacting organizations’ customer experience project success.
- Mobile advertising market will hit ~20% of Internet advertising in 2015.
- Non-Near Field Communications (NFC)-based mobile wallets will thrive. NFC-based wallets such as ApplePay will remain niche.
About IDC’s Predictions
IDC’s annual Predictions in APEJ draws upon the latest IDC research and a worldwide brainstorming exercise among IDC’s 1000+ analysts. This was followed by an extensive regional review to weigh in on key industry events, user trends, vendor strategies and economic measures that promises to uniquely define the technology trends that would impact and drive the market in APEJ for 2015. Across the globe, following the release of IDC’s global top ten predictions, IDC’s geographic, technology and industry teams will be releasing their own specific predictions in the coming months.
About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 48 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.