Former Adobe Leader with more than 25 years of experience leading Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategies leveraging Customer Insights joins the Council

LatentView, a global digital analytics consulting and solutions firm, today announced the addition of John Copeland to its advisory council. Copeland has more than 25 years of experience in marketing strategy and analytics from consulting and leadership roles at McKinsey and Company, Accenture and Prophet as well as marketing and go-to-market operational leadership roles at eBay and Adobe.

The mission of LatentView’s advisory council is to bring together the brightest minds across industries to provide LatentView and its clients with guidance and insights that fuel growth and secure business outcomes. Council members work directly with LatentView executives to forecast trends, address challenges and bridge relationships between the organization and its primary stakeholders. Copeland has also worked with large enterprises around the world to sharpen their marketing and analytics capabilities.

“Innovative data solutions that enable accurate and efficient decision-making are essential to business leaders that see an opportunity in the market and want to take advantage of it quickly,” said Rajan Sethuraman, LatentView CEO. “John’s experience coaching executives as they create go-to-market strategies, driven by his experience with Fortune 500 brands like eBay and Adobe, brings a fresh perspective to LatentView that can help our customers capitalize on new avenues for excellence in marketing analytics.”

Copeland most recently led go-to-market strategy and pre-sales strategy consulting for customers in key industries in Adobe’s enterprise software business. Previously, he led Adobe’s marketing analytics and market research teams, responsible for optimizing Adobe’s marketing performance.

“I’ve seen firsthand the power and agility that a strong analytics capability can deliver to a business,” said Copeland. “Many of my clients and customers have transformed the way they operate not only to be much more responsive but also more proactive about finding and capturing opportunities in their markets and addressing operational and customer experience issues. I’m excited to collaborate with LatentView to bring the same kind of value to its business and its clients’ businesses.”

In addition to his prior experience in go-to-market strategy and marketing analytics, Copeland has volunteered as a board advisory member at the Wisconsin School of Business where he assists in developing the curriculum for MBA students. He received his BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

About LatentView Analytics
LatentView Analytics is a global data analytics consulting and solutions firm that enables companies to excel in the digital world by harnessing the power of data and analytics. The company creates holistic and sustainable impact for some of the world’s largest brands, including more than 30 Fortune 500 companies in the retail, CPG, financial services, technology, media & entertainment, travel & hospitality, and industrials sectors. LatentView has been recognized as an industry leader by Gartner, Deloitte and others for its analytics work and vibrant company culture. Founded in 2006, LatentView has a globally distributed workforce. For more information, visit https://www.latentview.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn.

Source: Benzinga

Parijat Banerjee is Global Business Head for the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector at LatentView Analytics.

Like a wheel, the modern connected financial ecosystem is relentlessly rolling forward and innovating daily. At its hub are traditional financial institutions connected by digital and data “spokes” that venture outward to join with a collection of fintech companies. They enable several different ways for today’s consumers to pay, borrow and invest. Fueled by changes to the way we work, collaborate and purchase post-pandemic, digital platforms have reached mass adoption with 88% of people using an app to provide convenience in their financial lives.

This widespread adoption is made possible using APIs (application programming interfaces, or a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other) that allow data about customer behavior and preferences to flow freely and securely between fintech entities and their legacy financial counterparts. But the industry—which has been historically slow to capitalize on evolving technology—has an opportunity to tap into the wealth of data flowing across the ecosystem or risk settling back into pre-pandemic habits. Without a concerted effort from legacy institutions and their tech counterparts to drive innovation forward, the industry at large could fail to keep pace with evolving consumer expectations.

Today’s chief experience officers (CXOs) are envisioning a single source of truth for their data needs—one that visualizes information from sources across the organization to enable seamless decision-making. But such visualization is difficult when the data is trapped in disparate, on-premise centers. Moving data to the cloud is a common practice as many financial institutions are embracing digital transformation. The enterprises—and the larger connected network—can start leveraging this.

Our Connected Future

When we tap into and utilize the data at our disposal, several advancements become possible. Leaders should be apprised of our conceivable digital future and begin to prepare their teams for such innovation. Here are three factors to think about as we move into a wholly connected financial future:

• Governing The Data Explosion: Data is growing exponentially every minute. For us to leverage a truly efficient and connected ecosystem, we need to be able to put our faith in the quality, accuracy and consistency of data to objectively point us in the right direction. The challenge is the proliferation of structured and unstructured data created in a loop. Individuals, businesses and governments are generating an astronomical amount of data that require strings of zeros to describe its sheer volume. To exercise control for meaningful insights, there is an immediate need to establish streamlined processes for organizations at the enterprise level to help establish guardrails to govern the data.

• Bolstering The Experience Economy: In this age of the consumer, are we able to harness the power of analytics to turn insights into actions and create a strategy to help bolster growth? More and more, consumers in their quest for ultimate convenience are demanding that their data work in perfect synchrony with their day-to-day practices. To achieve a more connected future, we must create the infrastructure that clues us into predictable behaviors, so we can form solutions for this experience economy.

• Keeping Pace With Innovation: The pandemic was a dress rehearsal for the kind of action needed to push the boundaries of innovation across financial services. The enterprise was resilient and adapted to meet the immediate needs of its customers, a trend likely to continue. Horizontals like payments cut across industries and devices, as they are significantly disrupted by customer-centric fintech companies to meet customer expectations. These ongoing transformations from the legacy way of work to cutting-edge could place value-added services on a trajectory for tremendous evolution.

The connected financial ecosystem has seen extensive innovation over the last several years, but there is a rich store of data enabled by APIs that the industry is still not taking advantage of. Embracing the way that the rise of e-commerce and the gig economy are fueling new innovations and digital-first business models is the way ahead for the industry.

Innovation can be fostered when legacy players introduce paradigm changes in a few ways. First, a platform that functions as a digital destination can be created that combines lifestyle and financial services for consumers and merchants with embedded payment capabilities. They can also embrace how the rise of e-commerce and the gig economy are fueling new innovations and digital-first business models. Lastly, they can enable digital tools like wallets to sit outside traditional banks for users to transfer funds and make purchases using options such as BNPL.

In our quest for convenience, it’s critical that we start to pay attention to this data. As Simone Weil said, “Attention is the purest and rarest form of generosity,” and it’s one of the best ways for achieving a more interconnected system.

Source: Forbes

Annu Baral is the Head of Consulting Services at LatentView Analytics, a data analytics and decision science company.

The responsibilities of the modern marketing leader have grown from the management of Don Draper-style print ad campaigns in the 1960s that were portrayed in the TV show “Mad Men” to a core arm of the business—tasked with driving revenue and building brands. As marketing channels continue to rapidly expand, the mandate is changing for today’s CMO to move beyond looking solely at ROI and consider how marketing, customer experience and sales fit together to nurture the customer at all stages of their journey.

Historically, marketing has been an upper-funnel activity. How many people have engaged with your ad or visited your website? Success was measured by the reach and stickiness of a campaign, and more was always better.

Today, we are seeing a division between traditional marketing and growth marketing, and the difference is critical. Traditional marketing involves determining the best channel to mass disseminate brand-related information using historical data and industry best practices to achieve short-term sales goals. On the other hand, growth marketing takes into consideration all the possible data points along the way to inform decision-making in real time and leave room for campaign and brand evolution.

CMOs today need to merge core functions of traditional and growth marketing to facilitate customer relationships throughout the entire brand journey and positively impact topline metrics. It will become critical for CMOs to understand how marketing data is driving those metrics and put forth a growth plan for the next several quarters that takes into account not only sales but also customer loyalty.

Understanding Opportunities

The key difference between a traditional marketer and a growth marketer is how they visualize, organize and utilize their data. The enterprise has never had access to more data, but without a plan to execute, it can be overwhelming and difficult to glean insights from.

Before launching a lead-generation campaign, marketers should consider whether or not they’re making the most of their existing data. A common mistake marketers make when building their analytics strategy is narrowing their focus to customer-related metrics.

To create comprehensive insights, look at data from all sides of the business. Ask: How can we improve our customers’ experience? Use data from multiple customer touchpoints to guide the course of action to achieve customer-centric goals. Once these insights are achieved, marketers can use customer experience data to drive leads down the funnel.

Growth Marketing In Practice

Decisions based on gut feelings don’t work. A few industries have found success in eliminating biased decision making by leaning on data to inform their marketing decisions. In e-commerce, brands like Glossier have capitalized on their cult following to build businesses constructed on loyalty and customer experience.

As the first-of-its-kind DTC beauty brand, Glossier used website data early on in its product journey to identify which products customers were frequently purchasing together so that they could create bundles. Glossier SVP Ali Weiss told Wired that the brand leans on its customers’ direct feedback to develop new products. The brand’s best-selling cleanser called “Milky Jelly”—named for its texture—was created based on first-party feedback on an Instagram post from Glossier’s founder. Now seven years post-launch, the best-selling product has thousands of 5-star reviews.

Glossier and like brands combine data from social media, digital advertising and experiential marketing to identify precisely what resonates with their customers. The result: customers are willing to wait months for their products to arrive or restock. Their brand identity bleeds into every business area, making it instantly and widely recognizable.

Other brands have made themselves equally indispensable in their respective markets. Slack dominates corporate communication for nearly 80% of Fortune 100 companies; Airbnb and LatentView customer Uber are household names in the short-term rental and rideshare markets, respectively; Snapchat continues to grow its user base quarter-over-quarter by offering outside-the-box features to its users (remember when they launched the dog filter?).

Transitioning From Traditional Marketing To Growth Marketing

Marketers can build virality around their brand by considering the following examples of how to transition traditional marketing practices into the pillars of growth marketing.

1. Going From Email Marketing Lead-Gen To Community Creation

In an effort to increase customer retention, many e-commerce sites encourage users to opt-in to marketing emails as part of the checkout process when they make their first purchase. Instead, to encourage customers to be organic ambassadors of their product, marketers should create a community built around their product and inspire customers to join it. For example, high-end workout apparel brand Alo Yoga offers customers a 30-day free trial of its library of online yoga classes, “Alo Moves,” with every qualifying purchase. As an example on the B2B side, growth equity firm Volition Capital offers site visitors access to its Rule of 40 comparison tool in exchange for contact information.

2. Going From Google-Focused SEO To Multi-Channel SEO Strategy

For the first time in almost two decades, LatentView customer Google has been dethroned as the preferred search channel for consumers. In 2022, 40% of Gen-Z prefers TikTok and Instagram to discover new products—a nod to the quality of engagement created by video. Instead of putting all their SEO eggs in Google’s basket, marketers should opt for an SEO strategy that incorporates multiple channels and mediums.

3. Going From Upper Funnel Campaign-Based Marketing To Full-Funnel Customer Engagement

CMOs need to start incorporating information collected across the entire customer journey as they create campaigns. This includes information on customer sentiment, sensitivity to price or other key variables, how they engage with the product or service and their interactions with the brand over the course of the journey.

The CMO’s Role: Bigger Than Ever

Today’s CMO must interpret messaging on multiple platforms, in multiple formats, all while curating user experience through the entirety of a customer’s journey. Their north star metric is moving from marketing ROI to topline business growth. The buying cycle has changed, and looking at best practices is critical. CMOs today must identify where to look for the best data to help delight customers and drive growth.

Source: Forbes

The legendary trade route known as the Silk Road was actually a collection of piecemeal segments that offered no single, unified view of how things moved from China to the Mediterranean Sea. At the time, there was no need for one. But in a highly connected and digital world, fragmented supply chains simply don’t work. Organizations today require end-to-end visibility, to compete and navigate the challenges that have recently plagued global businesses.

Modern global supply chains suffer from demand volatility, a lack of visibility and sub-optimal processes across forecasting, manufacturing, supplier and inventory management, and logistics. Their plight is being further exacerbated by the fragmented nature of technology applications.

Global businesses need supply chain ecosystems powered by connected data, in order to make better and faster decisions. Following are three use cases that offer insights into effective demand, supplier and logistics management.

Demand Forecasting

At the start of the pandemic, consumers raced to purchase exercise equipment, hand sanitizer, loungewear and home-office supplies, causing major shortages and fulfillment backlogs. Two years later, retailers are still trying to regain their footing. Companies must understand these variables with the critical insights that only data can provide. Macy’s, for one, saw its inventory rise only modestly, which it attributed to the use of data analytics.

To forecast and satisfy demand, a company must anticipate breakdowns both in its own systems and elsewhere along the supply chain. Shortages of labor, containers and packaging materials, as well as a jump in transportation costs, have resulted in uncertainty for retailers. Why would they invest in marketing a product if they can’t meet the demand they expect the campaign to generate?

The traditional way of forecasting demand is to rely purely on historical data. The thesis states: If you understand what consumers wanted and needed yesterday, you can predict what they’ll buy tomorrow. This is an increasingly flawed approach, and fails to take into account the myriad of data sources available today, including those from social media and search-engine optimization reflecting consumer behavior. Companies should also look at elements such as competitors’ product pricing and reviews, mobility data and consumer search trends.

Supplier Management

Supplier management ensures that an organization receives maximum value for the money it pays to suppliers within a specified time frame. Access to the right products or raw materials is critical. According to a McKinsey article, for companies in most sectors, a single prolonged shock to production could wipe out 30% to 50% of a full year’s earnings. So how can leaders use data to manage suppliers more effectively?

Assent Compliance used data from the World Health Organization to identify hotspots early in the pandemic. That data was combined with supplier location data, enabling 1,000 customers to generate their own maps showing those parts of the world where their supply chains were most likely to be disrupted, and identifying the level of risk based on individualized data.

Supplier management should also include clear communications with suppliers and adherence to a comprehensive supplier-management policy. It should encompass details about how, when and what data the supplier will provide to further trust between the parties. Armed with such data, a company will have better insights into factors that can impact the supply chain.

Beyond this level of visibility, an organization should also have data-driven contingency plans for supply chain interruptions. These can include having backup suppliers to contact if primary suppliers fall through, and additional marketing, sales and merchandising strategies to fulfill shifting customer demand. Sometimes point solutions may work; other times, a custom solution that starts with data engineering might be required.

Logistics Management

Logistics management is the administration of transportation, warehousing, packaging and related activities to move and position inventory. Again, data provides the most visibility into a company’s end-to-end logistics. Data from tracking sensors linked to the internet of things can reveal where products are in the supply chain, while transportation data can help companies optimize routes.

DHL is among the logistics companies using data to optimize last-mile delivery. With full visibility into potential issues, such as availability and location of warehouse space and significant transportation delays, a company knows early on if it needs to reduce purchases of related products, cut back on marketing or even convert some retail outlets into dark stores.

Dark stores are former retail outlets that are no longer used for walk-in or curbside pickup orders. Instead, they now serve as distribution outlets that offer more space for store inventory and enable retailers to quickly fulfill orders. With multiple dark stores strategically located across a relevant marketing territory, retailers can fulfill orders more efficiently than through fewer larger warehouses. The use of dark stores can be a strategic advantage in this time of scarce warehouse space, with the average nationwide rental rate rising from $7.13 per square foot in the third quarter of 2021 to $8.70 per square foot last year, as The Wall Street Journal reported.

While each of these core supply chain functions relies on data individually, organizations must unify it all to garner the full supply chain picture. They need to be able to organize, store and access the data associated with each activity, and have a single-pane-of-glass view into all of it —have visibility over how everything works together.

Insights from demand forecasting, supplier management and logistics management can serve as the connective tissue between data hubs. This unification establishes relationships between different events that happen in the supply chain with data at the core, bringing resilience to the system as a whole. In the coming years, organizations that have a more connected view of the entire supply chain will be best positioned to mitigate risk and travel the modern-day “Silk Road” to long-term prosperity.

Source: Supply Chain Brain

The Zillennial generation of today (a combined term for the Millennials and Gen Zers) is an incredibly critical demographic. Born between the early 1980s and late 1990s (Millennials), and between 1996 and early mid-2000s (GenZ), this generation has grown up in a time of rapid change. And by filling up the roles of most organizations today, or about to step into it, they figure at the front and centre of the employee profile of all organizations of the modern era.

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Source: SAMVAD

LatentView Analytics has been awarded the Silver Award for their exceptional Rewards and Recognition Strategy at The Economics Times Human Capital Awards.

Source: India time