3 leaders explain how data investment accelerates business transformation

Speaker: Take one, common mark.

Director: So what are you thinking about when it comes to transformation?

Tina Edmundson: The world has changed. Technology is at the forefront. Consumers expect, in every industry that they interact, that we are going to be able to respond to their needs in a way that we never responded before.

Mitch Daniels: Higher ed has been pretty stuck in its ways for a long time, and it was not fully delivering on its promise. That it was, in too many cases, overcharging its customers. We felt we had a responsibility and an opportunity to do better than that.

Sonali Divilek: Digital banking has evolved tremendously in the last couple of years. Customer expectations and customer needs are evolving constantly, and if you don’t stay in tune to that, you’ll be stale.

So Chase has been on a digital transformation journey for several years that only accelerated that, and, if anything, just made us really glad that we had put those investments forward, so we were able to quickly evolve our digital experience to meet our customer needs at that time.

Edmundson: Data is so essential to a brand like Marriott. From sentiment insights to mobility data to understanding where and why people are traveling are critically important pieces of information for us to have.

While leisure travel had always been part of our marketing strategy, it was not the dominant piece of it. And so now reaching this new consumer was completely different.

When we looked at search data from Google that said that people were wanting to travel with pets, we were able to use that data to actually serve up a brand that was appropriate for that traveler based on their trip purpose.

Daniels: There’s no decision we make here that doesn’t start with an exploration of the data. The changes that we have tried to bring to Purdue have all stemmed from a sense that our students deserve the highest possible quality education at the most affordable price we can provide to them.

Divilek: When I think about finances, it’s probably one of the most personal things to an individual and hugely important. And so personalization is absolutely key. And the great thing about digital is you can actually personalize at scale.

The backbone is really around the data that we have and what we know about our customers at Chase. What we’re really trying to do is take the immense breadth and depth of services that we can provide to our customers and deliver that in a really contextual and personalized way, at the right moment. And so we use that data to bring insights to customers that are meaningful for them.

Edmundson: When you’re embarking on a business transformation, it’s important to have fewer, deeper relationships with partners like Google.

Daniels: We’re really thrilled at the growing relationship with Google. The results are terrific. That's really what we’re here for.

Edmundson: Putting all of this together, we were really able to reach the customer at the right point in the customer journey and make sure that our return on investment was optimal.

Daniels: I’m excited on behalf of Purdue because I think there’s going to be a period of real disruption in higher ed. And no one wishes for tough times, but they do offer a great opportunity for those who can separate themselves, and I hope we will.

Edmundson: Data is at the forefront of everything that we are doing, and that helps us make decisions faster, be in front of the needs of our consumers, and it has been, sort of, our road map over the last two years.

Divilek: There’s a lot of competition out there, which is great because it keeps us on our toes. It keeps raising the bar, helps us to keep pushing ourselves to meet those consumer expectations.

Edmundson: Transformation is important for a business because our customers have changed. Our customers are demanding that we go there.

Director: Fantastic.