ACCENTURE TO HELP TRANSFORM M'SIAN FIRMS THROUGH NEW MARKETING MODEL

By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah

KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 (Bernama) -- Accenture, a global management
consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, is set to help
Malaysian companies and organisations undergo a transformation, through a new
marketing model powered by Customer Analytics.

Accenture Global Managing Director Nick Smith said the Customer Analytics is
a critical enabler to the new marketing model, as it finds opportunities for
growth in the customer base, anticipates changing customer needs, continuously
improves decision making and helps manage and steer business in turbulent
times.

Smith, who has 20 over years experience in advertising, marketing and
customer relationship management, told Bernama in an interview that the consumer
landscape had changed fundamentally while businesses are faced with new
challenges to deliver on growth.

He said building an effective marketing capability is important, but
also more complex than ever.

"Marketing is no longer an activity on its own but the centre of an
organisation, a catalyst for change and an engine for sustainable growth," he
explained.

Smith elaborated that analytics is an integrated framework that
employs quantitative methods to derive actionable insights from data and then
use it, to shape business decisions and ultimately, improve outcomes.

"We believe that the analytics is emerging as the next management science to
transform businesses, making them more agile as they predict, optimise and
simulate the impact of changes to undertakings before it happens," he said.

He said analytics is also becoming a key differentiator for executives
in taking on important challenges of driving growth, enhancing cost and cash
advantage, improving operational excellence, restructuring the business at scale
and winning the war for talent.

Smith said the last two years have been a time of profound change and
challenges as well as exciting.

This year, he said, would be the tipping point - when the true
impact of changes grows clearer and industry leaders make their move.

"This is also a year when marketing fulfils its strategic role.

"In fact, marketing will play the key role in helping enterprises create
their own upturn by operating more efficiently, using Customer Analytics more
effectively while reaching and engaging customers more profitably," he stated.

According to Smith, change on the present scale means steep challenges for
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), trying to grow and sustain high performance.

"However, at Accenture, we also believe these changes create a major
opportunity for CMOs to help their companies create their own upturn," he said.

Many organisations in Malaysia, he highlighted, especially
telecommunications, financial services and retailers, have some form of
analytics capability within their organisations.

"All the organisations that I met with are using data effectively. The
question we are finding ourselves debating is, how much better can the data be
used," he said.

Recently, 50 of the world’s top CEOs shared their vision of the future and
the role marketing would play in shaping it.

In association with Accenture, The Marketing Society, a non-profit
professional association, has published their insights in a new book
titled appropriately, "The Future of Marketing".

"Our research has shown that companies which emerged more successfully from
previous economic downturns, exploited information management.

"This has evolved into predictive analytics, where companies put massive
amounts of data to work for them, creating unique competitive advantage by
acting on the insights produced," Smith noted.

According to Accenture's research, companies which substantially
outperformed competitors over the long term and across economic, industry and
leadership cycles, are five times more likely to use analytics strategically
compared with low performers.

The new economy means, the need for speed in decision making has
never been more critical. It is a key competitive differentiator that allows
organisations to create their own upturn.

Accenture's research also showed that high-performance companies mad fast
decisions and are typically in close proximity to their customers. High
performers also get the right information into the hands of the right people who
can act quickly.

"Technology is critical but it is not the only factor that high
performers focus on.

"While insights are interesting, competitive advantage comes from
identifying those insights that enable your strategies, and then mobilise
talent and processes, to drive business outcomes.

"To be successful, companies need to build a culture of fact-based decision
making that’s led from the top and driven across the organisation," Smith said.

-- BERNAMA