Hello, everyone. This is Tricia Ramsey. And on behalf of Adobe and 451 Research, which is now a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, I would like to welcome you and say thank you for attending today’s webcast titled The Future of Data Management and the Changing Environment. Leading off today’s discussion will be Cheryl Kingstone, who is Research Director of Customer Experience in Commerce at 451 Research. Joining Cheryl will be Tim Waddell, who is Research Director of Product Marketing at Adobe. Just a few quick housekeeping items before we get started. To ask a question, simply type it in the question box on your screen. We’ll get to as many as we can during the Q&A session. The presentation slides are available for download in the Resources section in the console. And finally, the on-demand version of the webcast will be available for download once the live webcast concludes. And with that, I will turn it over to Cheryl.

Thank you, Tricia. Yeah, and welcome to today’s session all around the future of data management and the changing landscape, because we really are in a very changing environment. We are all sheltering in for about a year now. It seems like incredibly long. But one of the things that I really like to make sure that we’re pointing out is no matter what we’re talking about, it really is all about connecting with customers. And so yes, I am the head of Customer Experience in Commerce and cover everything from ad tech to martech to sales, commerce, and service. And the fundamental issue that I try to make sure is that connecting with customers has been intensified in the age of COVID. We’re really taking a look about how emotion is the currency of the experience, and data is going to play a huge element in that. And why that is so important is because when we talk about experiences, it really is all about experience, not price and products. That’s going to be the competitive differentiation in the future. And businesses are really striving to connect with customers. They’re trying to harness the power of that impulse and human decision making and really connect with brands and really make sure that they are more loyal to them in a world that is very different than we were just a year ago. So the way I’ve looked at it is, what are we doing with data, and how are we embracing customers? And it really comes down to new ways of using and engaging the customers around the revitalization of storytelling. And we look at that to be much more immersive and personalized from everything from mobile to social to video channel. That’s what it’s all about today. But a lot of what I’ve been looking at has to do with the data itself. And that’s really changing, and it’s going to change over this upcoming year. And Tim, you’re really looking at this disruptive change, and there’s been some massive changes with just using the data that you’ve been looking at. Yep. Thanks, Cheryl. And hey, everybody. So yeah, I mean, as Cheryl talks about this disruption on the horizon, it’s actually been happening for a while with Safari and Firefox doing some things in the past. But when Apple and their IDFA and Google and Chrome announced their change that’s upcoming, we’re talking about a massive population on the web and mobile devices that we’re hitting now by these changes. So as IDFA, they’re pushing that back to Jan-Feb now of next year. But that’s 700 million users who will probably not opt into being tracked, right? That’ll be a default. It’ll be non-trackable. Chrome will probably be a year after that. They’re actually doing a lot of work with the industry because they’re in the ad business too. And it’s obviously impacting the ad business dramatically with the deprecation of Chrome cookie ID, cookie tracking. So this is now a large problem that we all have to figure out. I think everybody’s been thinking about it. But I kind of look at this as like, if people are familiar with the movie 50 First Dates, where Drew Barrymore has a short-term memory problem, so she doesn’t remember yesterday, Adam Sandler’s in love with her. And he has to convince her every day that he’s a good guy and she should care about him. But it’s the reverse for the brand. So you’re going to have to make sure that you’re convincing all of your customers why you’re good and why they should care about you and why they should have a relationship with you. So it’s a really interesting time that we’re going through. And we’re going to talk more about this as we go through it. So back to you, Cheryl. Yeah, absolutely. And so when we look at all the change that’s happened in this past year, one of the things I like to talk about is what’s changed? So there’s a massive shift. Everyone talks about a massive shift to digital experience. But the fact that we can really take a look at it’s 50% increase. We’ve been talking about digital experience for years. But what’s really changed has to do with the dramatic shifts in consumer spend in a totally different channel. And that’s changed the way that we have confidence and trust. And we’re going to go into that. So it’s really altered the way priorities and businesses have looked at related technology trends. So when we do look at those behavioral shifts and really engaging with customers, is our behaviors. So one of the things that we looked at also is things around conservative converts and cutting edge. So conservatives are the ones that tried new digital experiences for the first time, but they’re going to go back. It might not be digital forever. They’re going to be more of the ones that are going to be in store. So what are we going to do to make sure and bring them back into stores? Then you get the converts, the ones that have tried new digital experiences the first time. And they’re going to continue to use it. And that’s like 50% of the market. You’re going to wait and see when this is coming up. And then the cutting edge ones are the ones that actually use digital experience, but accelerated in the future. But what’s most important is when we look at this, when we look at it, whether it’s convenience, price, or brand, the cutting edge and the converts are very brand-centric. And that’s one of the key takeaways that we have to understand is it’s all about that customer experience. So to remain relevant in the eyes of our customers and our consumers, we have to make sure that we’re focusing on contextual experiences at every step. And that’s where data remains core to the balance of power here. That’s where we take a look at not only the ability to capture and unify all the different data sources across the enterprise, but how are you going to use that data to contextualize and operationalize and push those critical insights to all the different departments and all the different stakeholders? Because this whole customer experience is a non-linear approach, and everyone has to use it. This isn’t just a marketing problem. This isn’t just an ad tech problem. This is a customer problem. And when we use data, we have to do it much more effectively. And so that’s really what’s important is with all these changes that Tim was mentioning, the fact that we’ve got changes with cookie, we get changes with Apple and all the mobile device IDs, what isn’t changed is that we do want to understand our customers, and we want to make things much more relevant in their eyes. But we want to do it in a very privacy-centric way. So some of the data we have is that trust and privacy builds loyalty. So if that digital experience is what we’re trying to do to build loyalty and the data is going to support it, let’s make sure that we understand that 59% would stop shopping if a business sold their personal data. So that really makes changes in how we’re going to use the data to make sure that the data that you have stays contained in your own organization and that you do complement it with something that the third-party data that can be enriched with it, but in a privacy-centric way. And so again, 70% are more likely to recommend a brand. Think about those advocates that have more robust privacy and trust features. That’s absolutely essential and something to think about moving forward. And so that’s what we’re also tracking is where are we with some new technologies of privacy by design as we try to use more data to improve the overall customer experience, and then transparency and control. So a lot of what we talk about is convenience, context, and control to make sure that the consumers understand what’s going on and they would be more loyal if you can go in that. And Tim, you’re very much on this whole privacy and trust and the impact it has on loyalty. Yeah. Trust is such a huge factor in this whole thing. And I think the reason why we’re going on this industry change is because I think we all haven’t really done the right thing in the past. I think we sort of abused the customer’s trust in some senses with retargeting and lots of other things that we’ve done. So I think in general, and the key thing, though, as you said, this is just not a marker’s point of view. And it’s certainly not just the IT or the legal teams have to think about this. Everybody’s got to think about how they leverage this. And that’s why the technology is so important in that you need to be able to really easily label all this data that comes in and make sure it’s standardized and make sure it’s only going to be used in appropriate places. So I just think this is one of the bigger topics. It’s not a sexy one by any means, but it’s something we all have to really embrace and internalize to make sure that we’re doing right by our customers. Absolutely, because it’s all about transparency and trust and control. And so why is it so important is when we look at the overall shift to digital, one of the things we look at is digital transformation and the role of digitally driven organizations versus ones that are digitally delayed. And so let me just explain that for a minute. So digitally driven organizations are ones that have formal strategies for digital transformation and are also early adopters of technology. As compared to ones that are just in the process of digital transformation, they might be researching it or planning it or have no strategy whatsoever. And they’re more pragmatic with their buying of technology. And when we look at those different personas, there’s a clear difference that digitally driven organizations are prioritizing key assets that are really going to make them more competitive in the future. And so this is where we look at the 31 point gain around improving customer experience versus focusing on reducing cost for operational efficiencies and then managing the increase of volume of data growth, increased competitive differentiation, along with the ability to innovate. And so all of those are really going to create differentiation to meet those business objectives. And then when we double down there, what’s the difference here? And where are we trying to go? Sorry, I just give me two seconds. My slide. I moved the browser. I apologize. When we’re looking at this, we have to understand the difference here around objectives. So customer-centric initiatives haven’t changed with COVID. Prior to COVID, it was really important for improving customer service and growing revenue from existing customers. That’s been a table stakes prior to COVID, during COVID, and after COVID. What’s really interesting is understanding the difference between digitally driven one and ones that are digitally delayed, like I said earlier. So everyone’s trying to really focus on improving customer service. But let’s look at some of these data initiatives. Initiating customer metrics, such as net promoter score, customer friction points, that’s also creating a huge gap. Loyalty programs and understanding customer advocacy. All of these, these customer-centric metrics, are being more led by these digitally driven organizations versus the operational-centric. And that’s absolutely essential when you take a look at things like the gap between them. And digitally driven businesses understand the importance to be data-driven. And it’s not just about retention. And it’s about marketing and understanding what it means to retain those customers. And so there’s where the initiatives are coming into play. And this is really changing the market forces. So as we understand what has happened in the future with the IDFA and the Googles, that’s really changing data management and how that’s going to evolve. And Tim, you have some expectations around identity and personalization here. Yes, we, I mean, we’re all needing to evolve. So based on these conditions, like everyone has to rethink how they manage their business and engage with their customers. So this has been going on. But the shift towards more durable identifiers is critical, right? So first party data is the cornerstone of everything we’ve always had anyway. But the ability to map your behavioral data to someone coming to your website or mobile device via a browser, it’s more challenging, right? That’s just not going to be there. And there are things happening. And we’ll talk more about those with data providers and whatnot. Durable IDs are the cornerstone that you all have to move towards. But the ability to access that data and make it easy for the marketers and the rest of the business to access that all in one place. And so organizationally, we all have to harmoniously think about it and not just that’s your domain, this is mine. We need to look at our set of customers in one domain and have easy access. And really, real time is going to be more important than ever. Because as you go into a browser, as a customer comes to your site in a browser, the first time, you’re not going to know who they are most likely. They’re going to be unregistered. So you’re going to have to quickly be able to leverage as their engagement throughout that session to see what they’re doing and give them better information. So anyway, ease of access is critical. We talked about privacy and governance as a key element to make sure that marketers are not using data where it shouldn’t be PII and behavioral merged in one place. It’s a great thing. We’ll talk a bit about more. But making sure you are marketing responsibly with that data is really absolutely critical. And then the other element is just this, I think as industry, we cobbled a bunch of technology together. But the need for that to be more seamlessly connected, again, with organizations across the organization, but the technology really has to work harmoniously to make sure that you can deliver those important experiences as we talked about.

And the reason for that in real time, which Tim just mentioned, is absolutely essential because businesses really have to respond to change. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the escalation of the importance of this. So it’s all about the data, the technology, the processes, so that you can rise to meet those customer expectations. And so when we do look at how we’re doing this, the reshuffling of the proverbial deck is what’s really changing the way that we’re facilitating these experiences. We’re looking and reevaluating some of our technology purchases in the past. We’re being more data driven to ensure seamless customer journeys. We’re looking to make those experiences more sticky. And those are likely to rise to the top of the deck when it comes to focusing on loyalty and retention. But the question is, how quickly can we change? And maybe the cloud can help, but there’s still a lot of legacy technology out there. There’s a lot of investments in the way that we have to connect the data. And now that we have changes to identity, that’s where we’re taking a look at new platforms and new ways of being data driven in this experience economy because the data is the lifeblood of those digital experience. And acting on that data is really what we call the feedstock for that modern customer experience. And you kind of do it in real time. And so being more data driven is absolutely critically important because when we look at it, that’s where you can create these immersive experience, such as relying heavily on more rich media content and then applying that with prescription insight and intelligent automation. And a lot of companies are talking about, well, that’s why I’m trying to do things like robotic process automation. But the issue there is that’s just a little piece of the pie. You really have to build deeper connections to recommend next best actions so that you can create contextually driven interactions. And that just doesn’t happen with some of these little piecemeal technologies. And Tim, when we do talk about using some of these new technologies, we’re looking at things like machine learning and AI. And I know Adobe has really focused on really embedding that into the business application because it really isn’t just about the technology itself to make it happen. Yeah. I mean, this is an obvious statement. But AI and machine learning obviously are more critical than ever. And certainly at the scale and the volume of data that we have access to, human monitoring and decision making around this is just impossible. So you do have to have a solid quality set of AI tools built into your tech stack to be able to determine what are the right segments. Should you be sending this customer an email or not right now? What is the next best offer, as you’ve mentioned? So it’s just really important that we are embracing the capabilities that are available now and that they are included in the technology that we’re all using. Yeah, but the problem I’m seeing, though, and I’m sure you can talk to this also, but the problem I’m seeing is that our data shows that roughly half of the organizations have 7-plus islands of customer data. And I can tell you when we look at large organizations, it’s 11-plus and higher. And we’re looking, this is just customer data. This is not business data. So it can extrapolate even more when you’re really becoming a real-time enterprise and you’ve got to connect that business network. And then when you take a look at the difference between IT and line of business, line of business thinks they have fewer or less silos because they don’t realize what they don’t have at their fingertips to make decisions. And IT is more aware. And so this is where I take a look at where we need to go in the future around IT and line of business collaboration. Because understanding where these new data sets are coming is really all about the modern approach of where we’re trying to go. And so this is where I like to look at the data-driven and how organizations are becoming more data-driven in real time. And so we ask this question around, do you currently have a strategy to be more data-driven all the way up to, do you have a formal strategy to actively implement and change your culture based on being data-driven? And here’s another interesting differentiation, is overall, you’ve got only around 25% have formal strategies and only 18% have no strategy. But when we look at the difference between digitally-driven and digitally-delayed, 50% have a formal strategy to be data-driven, as compared to digitally-delayed, which is only 19%. That’s huge, a huge gap that’s going to change. So roughly, it’s all about actively taking steps to infuse the data into that decision-making process. And so that’s really where the alignment of that data-driven culture can suggest that the transformation of the value of that data is going to play a pivotal role in enabling those modern CX strategies. And that’s only going to change with these architectural shifts. But why is this so important? That’s what’s most important. Why is it so important? Right here, it says that 61% of consumers state that a negative online shopping experience makes them less likely to shop with that vendor in the future. And I would like to let you know that as of yesterday, and we already closed out this slide, so this was a quarter ago, during COVID, negative experiences became rampant. And this number went up to 88% in just a few months, because I just got that data back. And that’s not a good thing. We are struggling just at a time when these digital experiences became so important to connect with our customers, we’re failing. And if we have an 88% negative experience, aren’t likely to shop with them, and that’s also in store, you’re not going to get them back. And let me drill down one more further on this. It’s all about the money. And so when we look at this, it’s a multi-billion dollar catalyst for data-driven improvements. And so where do we see this? By not investing in digital transformation, you see that potential sales were lost, $28 billion, because too many steps were required to either find the product. Or they couldn’t complete the transaction. That’s just the US. That’s huge. Now let’s look at another one that’s negative, $30 billion in less sales, just because we talk about this abandoned shopping cart because they couldn’t complete the purchase. Now let’s look at positive sales influence. Well, you’ve got the ability, $46 billion opportunity for personalized offers, were resulted by consumers making a purchase that they didn’t otherwise intend to make. And if you don’t, like Tim said, know the information about your customer, and you’re constantly trying to date them with blind information, how are you going to know how to personalize that offer? How are you going to know what is that cross-channel buying option that they prefer? Again, these are where we’re going to have changes in the overall stack to make sure that we can improve. And so if the digital battleground is here, Tim, you really have, let’s tie the data as it relates to 61%, now 88% of a negative online experience, and these dollar values, how can we actionize this for our customers or the businesses themselves? That is the battleground, and COVID has made this more so than ever before. I think the numbers for this holiday season are going to be off the charts. I think it’s like a 2x growth in a single year or something. The numbers are staggering. And again, you said this earlier, we have access to a lot of data. The organizations have it. It’s just spread out. And that is really the key thing. And as people running a business, we have to make sure that we are making sure our IT teams are helping us, that we’re the line of business customer to them. We need to make sure that we have access to all this data in one place, and we can make these appropriate things happen so that we are giving the customer the best possible experience available. But again, it’s everything working together, and we have to make sure our organizations are doing it too. Right, so if your organization says they can’t make the business required and they don’t understand the impact, use these numbers because it really does make a huge change. And speaking of change of technology, people are confused. They don’t really understand what has changed. And so this is where I like to call this alphabet soup in this modern 360. So everyone understands what CRM is all about. We’ve invested around 66% on average. Businesses have invested in CRM. It gets up to 88% with large businesses, smaller with small businesses. But the bottom line is CRM is great. It’s for sales, marketing, commerce, service. It’s operational data. It’s known customers. It’s one element to solve the problem. Then we move up the stack. A lot of companies were trying to connect all these different sales, service, marketing applications and they went to master data management. That’s perfect for IT users and the golden record. But again, it was primarily historically structured data. Then we went to the DMP, this data management platform. That was really, really more on ad tech users and services for an unknown audience. We discussed earlier the role of that is changing significantly over the next 18 months. We’ll come back to the DMP. CDP is something that came out. A lot of people are using this term CDP, but what I really want people to understand is I really do not advocate a CDP only for marketing users. And it’s just great to connect the known and the unknown and the subscription model. But there’s layers of what really needs to be brought to market. So I’m personally really pushing something called the customer intelligence platform, which is about an enterprise way of looking at the world from sales, marketing, commerce, service, using machine learning based synthesis that can operate in a headless or dynamic user interface. And it’s really changing the way we’re looking at it. So between that and what’s going on with the DMP, Tim, you’re really also looking at the changes between the CDP and the DMP and what I’m calling a customer intelligence platform. But there are just changes here that a lot of people are making. Yeah, and I mean, as we see the market conditions, the DMP is gonna become almost irrelevant after Google shuts off their cookie tracking. So brands need to be moving now to think about how they’re gonna do this. What is their future proof strategy to make sure they have a plan in place that’s gonna allow them to, again, not have 80% dissatisfied customers. So the need to connect the dots between DMP and prospecting is still really important and what has really been done, used in the past for. But attaching that to known customer data and then having access to all those same channels will make the world A, better because you’re gonna have much richer profiles about your customers and then access to all the same channels but then again, trust and governance is critical, making sure that you leverage the data in the right place. So that’s how we view it as all this is converging into one thing. And the CIP idea is interesting, right? You gotta have all this data in one place, you have to have all the right segment and profile capabilities in that scenario and access to all the destinations. So it’s all converging and that’s where, as brands need to be thinking about how they’re gonna do that and what they’re gonna use. Absolutely. And so really I wanna talk about what we mean by the CDP and the DMP and where that’s changing because two years ago when I came out with this, I didn’t think the DMP was gonna go anywhere, right? So this is how quickly and fast the market is moving. So let me just take a step back. The DMP is great for finding and acquiring new customers but as you know, that’s changing with the way we’re making changes to tracking of cookie and the device IDs. Then on the other side, we were looking at the CDP to grow and retain your customers but the future of the CIP really is gonna replace those silos because what the CDP did from a marketer standpoint is make another silo on the agent desktop. The DMP was again another silo. So moving it all forward is where we really see coming together and the use cases of that across the customer journey. Because it really is, you need to have one set of data. I’m gonna give you a little bit more of an architecture in a minute so that you have multiple different ways to solve those use cases. And Tim, when you look at some of the use cases, you’re really looking and have some understanding across these three use cases and then I’m gonna dive down a little bit more into that whole CIP.

Yeah, so this is kind of how we’ve been thinking about it across the use cases. So three major ones, personalization, which covers really the two and three as well. But so personalization in general, making sure we’re delivering the right messaging to the customer and known customer scenarios. Obviously that’s the great part where we know them when we have a relationship, we wanna continue that relationship. But prospecting is still really critical to grow businesses, right? You can’t just live off, you can maintain loyalty and nurture, but you still have to find new customers. And the idea of lookalike modeling is still really important. So we need to be thinking about how we’re gonna do that and what data we’re gonna use to actually leverage that. But let me just go through a few of these. So in personalization, as I mentioned earlier, when a user goes to a website and we’re not gonna know who they are. So you’re gonna have to be using some really good tests and learning technology to say, all right, what’s the average usage or engagement rate on specific images or content. And then follow that user as they go through your website and that journey so that you can actually start learning about them during that session to personalize it. But that’s gonna be hit pretty hard with the market changes that are happening.

Obviously recognize and authenticated traffic. We’re still in good shape there, right? If a user comes in and they’re logged in like FSI or retail or things like that, I think we’re in good shape there from perspective of knowing that customer for the most part. And then actually for the authenticated traffic, it only gets better because we’re merging all that past behavioral data together with their known customer data. So there’s some good and the bad in the personalization front the known customer scenario is generally good. So again, I think converging these technology and data is gonna help the brands actually have better engagement with their customers if they use it the right way. But prospecting is one where, this is where, again, in the ad business, we relied on these massive pools of inventory and use technology to retarget and target through that.

The publishers became a little bit less relevant. And I actually view this as an opportunity for the publishing community to build the stronger relationships again with their customers and their subscribers. So it’s gonna be really important for us, the technology vendors, to make sure that we have the ability to align with publishers and connect with them or these other data providers to identify and have some context about this user and what interests them, what they’re looking for. So I view this as, yeah, there’s some things happening that are gonna hurt us and we need to figure it out. But I also think this is a good opportunity for us to build better relationships again with directed publishers and their set of users as well.

But these are interesting things that we’re all trying to solve for. And solving is something that I know that the industry, multiple industries, are really trying to do. And one of the ways I’ve really taken a look at it is, this is a architecture view. This is what everyone’s trying to get at. And so when you look at this, let’s look at the silos of data that we have below. Everyone talks about that first-party data. That’s the CRM, sales, service, marketing, all that operational data. Second-party data can be more about some of your partnership data. It could be some of that publisher data. That’s where it can really come into play. There’s third-party data out there that’s still relevant. It can be used for your models. There’s still a question of how we’re really using it, but there’s still value in all of the data that you have. What’s changing is the way that we’re gonna start connecting the data together. Now I do wanna point out about data lakes. Data lakes is initiatives that a lot of businesses moved from. We started in data warehouse, then we went into data lakes. And the problem with data lakes is they didn’t really have a lot of data governance around, and they turned into what I would call mud, or someone else recently called a swamp. And so there’s nothing wrong with it, but again, it’s not solving the problem. And so we can then use that as another feedstock way of pulling it all in. You’ve got all your omni channels and all this unstructured data. So this is where you’ve got your social data and a lot of the connected device data is out there and your behavioral data and location data and all of that needs to be more streaming. And this is what Tim was saying, more real-time information. And as we move to a real-time enterprise, it’s all about bringing this together with natural language processing and machine learning so that we’re able to contextually match and we’re continually synthesizing this and adapting this identity graph. And we’re gonna have one identity graph. That identity graph might change, but we’ll be able to use it in multiple scenarios. You just don’t want an identity graph in your DMP and your identity graph in your CDP and then an identity graph somewhere else. You wanna make sure you have one view of your customer. Then you can apply some real-time decisioning engine and that’s where machine learning can come back and you can really prioritize and score and you can use a lot of this real-time decisioning in the moment on multiple different use cases. And those use cases are a myriad of use cases. I just have it up here. Everywhere from customer journey optimization to attribution and retention lookalike modeling. Like I said earlier, abandoned shopping cart analysis or micro segmentation and targeting, personalized service, again, contextual commerce. All of these use cases can be operated if you can empower an existing investment or you can use it again for more self-service data analysis. What is going to really matter here has to do with a lot of how you’re gonna use the data to be digitally driven. And so when you take a look at how you’re going to really operationalize this CIP, this is where, again, I’m gonna harp on the difference between digitally driven and digitally delayed. And the key strategies here, it says that we have no, the way we’re looking at it really is, yes, they have formal strategies in early adopters of technology, or again, they don’t. But when we look across things like using machine learning and AI to improve customer experience, or using intelligent process automation to reduce customer friction points, creating a single view of the customer, and yes, using new technologies to ease regulatory compliance with raising privacy concerns with the consumer, all of these are going to separate your digitally driven organizations from the ones that are digitally delayed. And so this is where a lot of changes are gonna play out in the platforms. And so this really is the driving force to what I was gonna say, the customer intelligence platform story that’s driving a lot of the data-driven experience economy. And so why these are so important is because it requires, again, the power of three for a modern platform. So when I said the AI and machine learning, here’s what I call the three stools. So yes, everyone’s trying to get this prescription insight to recommend a specific course of action based on the data. And they’re trying to create those immersive experiences. That’s where I’m talking about contextual content. That’s gonna change. We’re really looking to make adaptive content in the future, not static content that’s relevant based on the situation at hand, and then use intelligent automation so that the processes can change based on what’s going on. So we’re not hard coding anymore. This is the heart of what we called earlier around digital transformation, but you gotta put it all together. So you get one and two, it’s great for actionable insight. One and three, process efficiency. Three and two, you got performance efficiency, but you can’t tell me the goal is not to have both process efficiency, actionable insight, and performance effectiveness. Don’t you agree, Tim, when we look at this slide and we’re really trying to get at the power of three in a modern platform? I’ll be shameless. This is why I love it. I know, sorry. It’s just our heritage in the creative space is obviously, that’s our cornerstone, but aligning that with our data collection and data management capabilities and activation is just, it’s why I work here. It’s a great scenario, and I completely agree. And we’ve been pushing this digital transformation concept with our customers and helping them make this happen. So I love it. Yeah, and I’ve been pushing the contextual content for a while. It’s not easy. I think a lot of people understand the role of data. I think a lot of people role the intelligent automation. I think we have a long way to go to bring the creatives, the marketing, and pulling it all together. So it’s going to be a really interesting decade. And why are we doing it? This is just a snippet of what I have around this digital maturity model. And when I look at a digital maturity model, it really is the foundation is around the processes and where you’re going from initial to defined to optimized to managed. And I don’t have it here, but if anyone’s interested, I’ll be able to go through it. But here’s just little pieces of it. And so we pulled out some data around the processes. Then we asked about data and content, and then AI and ML, and the action you’re going to take on it, and also cloud. But here’s one where we took a look at, because everyone’s asking where companies are as it relates to artificial intelligence and machine learning. And again, I’m going to harp on digitally driven versus digitally delayed. But more digitally driven organizations are using multiple machine learning algorithms live as compared to potentially ones that are just trying to play with it, or they have one or two models. And now take a look at how they’re applying that in real time to improve the overall customer experience. And so the goal is really to make sure that the customer experience is at the individual level, what Tim was saying earlier around personalization. And the fact that you can do it in real time across the entire customer journey, that’s where the decision making comes into play. That’s where it’s going to create these leaders, because it really is all about using these use cases in real time. And what I mean by that is the top CX use cases that I’m really seeing driving the industry forward really going to vary. So when we look at optimizing the customer journey, even health care really cared about that. They just cared about looking at it from the point of view of the patient. And so when we look at different verticals, manufacturing, B2B is still very focused on even the ad tech world. They are still trying to understand visitors and where they’re trying to go. That’s a manufacturing world. And yes, they want to optimize the customer experience. Now let’s take a look at government. Government looks at it from a citizen standpoint. Telecom looks at it. So there is lots of different ways that we can take a look at the use of things, even in a B2B sense. So a customer intelligence platform can even look at sales enablement from a prospect hub. And of course, the software industry is really trying to get a hold of that. So there’s lots of different ways to make sure that we’re empowering all the different departments in the future. But it means about bringing it all together. It’s making sure that we do it in a very compliant way. And we shift looking and understanding and bringing together the unknown and the known. And you can go through that a little bit more, Tim, when it comes to a complete data management solution across the customer lifecycle. And it’s really bringing together the changes that’s going on in the industry. Yes. So this is our view of how we’re thinking about it. So I think we align nicely with you, Sharon, how far have I been looking at the market. And I’ll start with just something we don’t think enough about. It’s just the data collection process and how that is happening. And again, with customer experiences, page load time is a really important thing. And so it’s really important that every brand has a really strong and solid, efficient customer data collection process so that they’re gathering that data really quickly and their page loads are happening very efficiently. But as I mentioned earlier, this need for complete data management is critical. So we’ve obviously been in the DMP space. We’re in the CDP space now. We’re merging all that together. So we’re going to have one’s offer moving forward. And so because the ecosystem and the customer lifecycle is so critical, even if for known customers, you’re nurturing them to do different things and buy different things. So the need to connect this and acquire new customers with pseudonymous data and enrich your known customer profiles with that data as well is super important. And again, I think organizationally, that’s a discussion every brand needs to have as well, is making sure their teams are working in harmony and using all that data in one place in one set of profiles. But it’s just really that’s where the market’s moving. And granted, these market forces are pushing us in this direction. We might not have done this a year ago. But certainly, the way things are going, this is where everyone has to be thinking about how to manage their customer experiences by putting this all in one connected set of technology. And the real benefits of this are that we’re going to have the ability to manage this more durable set of data, which is what we’re going to end up with. And that’s really important to future proof how we’re going to engage our customers. And so that’s critical. We talked about real time. That is just more essential than ever. Again, the word real time means a lot. One of our engineers talks about it as like you could pick out any brand of a car, and someone might think that’s a fast one, and someone might go, that’s a really slow one. So it’s very subjective. But the scenarios, and you talked about all those different industries, they have different needs about when and how they engage with customers. So some might be within milliseconds. Some might be an hour, a minute, a day, whatever. But it’s just a different version. So you need to have the ability to connect all the dots of the data and the technology and AI to make that happen with the right experience for that customer. Again, trust and governance of that data, I can’t say that enough. That’s just such an important part that we all need to embrace. But there’s a lot of benefits. And again, the market is forcing us to do these things. But I think it’s a good thing. I think we’re all going to end up in a better place. It’s just challenging that we all need to make sure we stop and think about how we’re going to do it.

Absolutely. And so how we’re going to do it, I want to bring this to a close a little bit. And we’re going to go into Q&A. So make sure that you put your questions coming up. Feel free to keep adding it in. But it really is all about the platform. So when we take a look at this, 45% you don’t think that’s high, but there’s a lot of different issues out there as it relates to strategies. But this was the number one investment. So 45% of digital leaders say that customer data and intelligent platforms and data enrichment will have the highest investments over the next 12 months, the number one thing that they’re trying to get at. And that’s because we really have to look at bringing intelligence across the entire customer journey. We have to make sure we have the right data at the right time. And it really is about making sure we have the next best action of what we’re talking about. And in order to do that, 92% of digital leaders are really stating that they need to unify their business data to create more contextually relevant customer experience. And that’s very important. So it’s all about the platform. And why is it important? It’s because we have to operate in real time. We don’t have the luxury of delaying answers anymore. We don’t have the luxury of making sure that there are friction points out there. Remember, 88% will not come back if they have a negative experience. So the importance of transforming to a real-time enterprise, and that’s just not making things pretty, guys. That’s making sure that your inventory is available. That’s making sure that the ad that you’re promoting is the right context so that you’re making sure that they’ve already purchased it, that you’re not trying to sell them when all of a sudden they’re in the middle of a service engagement. There’s so much more we need to do to make sure that we’re a real-time enterprise. And that’s where the platform and things like cloud and machine learning are really going to play out in the future. And so when we do take a look at where it’s going in the future, if you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. And if you’re really happy with what you did in the past, then great. Continue it. Then I would say that you’re an optimized experience. And then come talk to me because I want to share that. But a lot of organizations are really not happy with what they’re doing. And they really are trying to change. And so that’s what we’re here to do, is give you the motivation and the insight to make sure that you’re delivering the most optimal customer experience to your customers as quickly as possible. And so at this point, we’re going to go into Q&A. Tricia, would you want to take over here? There are some questions I can start reading out. How do we want to take this back now? I can start reading the questions. Thank you, Cheryl. And just a quick reminder, if you have a question, simply type it in the question box on your screen. So going on to the first question, how will the convergence, DMPs, and CDPs impact key marketing functions? Tim, do you want to take that because you’ve been really looking at that? I can add on if you want. But yeah. Again, we think that’s the right path. And that’s where the market’s going to have to go. I think as we see, my big question is, I keep talking about organizations and how if there’s different teams using the DMP versus the CDPs in the market. And those teams are going to have to come together. I think it makes total sense from a technology perspective. And in that, again, connecting all that synonymous data with known customer data is critical. It’s happening today. But the impact is essentially that the DMP was meant for more advertising and prospecting use cases. And as the third party cookie goes away, that becomes a much different process that we’re going to have to use to make that happen. So again, I mentioned the need to be able to connect with more directly with publishers. The log gardens get more important because that hash profile that we’ll have within a CDP will be easily mapped to the raw gardens and their users. But publishers are going to start doing that more directly as well. We have some publishers doing that using our technology to make that happen. So it will happen again in a year from now when Google switches off their cookie. The DMP is better be lined up with something else before then. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s one of the reasons why I’ve changed my stance on what’s going on with respect to all these silos of data. And I used to think that the DMP could continue along until we made this change. So yeah, what’s the next question, Tricia? Next question is, what is 451 seeing in terms of organizational shifts due to upcoming disruptions? That’s actually an interesting timed question because we just are putting the final touches on our preview for 2021. So one of the major things that we’re promoting here has to do with the organizational change with respect to data-driven experience economy, the changes that are happening with the DMP and CDP, and how we have to have more than just marketing. Absolutely. But we’re also taking a look at more of the persona. So what happened during COVID, and how is the new normal changing? I know everyone is really sick at seeing the new normal. But we’ve done some analysis really taking a look again at the conservative converts and cutting edge, and how they’re changing their behavior, and what’s going to continue with the future. And so we are looking at these digital experiences and the customer satisfaction of these digital experiences. Continue to follow that. Another interesting thing that we’re also looking at is the role of fraud. So fraud has really come out. It’s kind of sad to say that because of COVID, we’ve also had an escalation of that. And we have to understand how we’re going to protect our digital experiences online. The growth is going to stay. So that’s going to happen. Using data to improve the overall customer experience, making sure we’re taking the voice of the customer, and turning that into real-time customer engagement at point of interaction really demands data and what we’re doing with it. So all of these are really changing the future. Again, it really is all about having a platform. I’m not saying you have to have one vendor. I am saying make sure that we use more of a modern platform to bring it all together and take advancements for more agility. Thank you, Cheryl. I’m going to move on to the next question. Did you have anything to add on, Tim? Nope. All right. Next question, what is Adobe doing to ensure we as brands are protecting our consumer data? Yep. Again, that one is near and dear to my heart, not the sexiest one. But as we collect all this data, the need to manage it, we have our Adobe Experience platform, which is where we’re moving. And that’s this consolidated set of capabilities that collect data, standardize it, but has really what we call our dual system data usage and enforcement. As data comes in, it’s labeled accurately. And then the ability to enforce the usage of that is paramount. So again, we gather a lot of data on behalf of our customers. We want to make sure, as they’re merging PII and pseudonymous data together, that they’re using it in the right way to follow all regulations, local and global. So it’s just critical for all brands to be just hypersensitive about what they’re doing with this data. Yeah, remember, we talked about trust and privacy and loyalty, absolutely important. And what your strategy is to protect that customer data is critical, because it’s not just about the customer that wants you to do it. It’s a financial obligation or regulatory compliance now.

Thank you. All right. Looks like we have one final question. Which industries show the best success rate in bridging gaps between marketing and IT organizations? Yeah, well, no one’s doing that well. Sorry. Well, you know, let me take a step back. Yeah, it’s getting better. It really is getting better. The problem is it depends on who you ask. So when I do look at some industries that are leading the charge, they’re financial services. So retail banking is doing a lot better with financial services than with the financial services. Retail banking is doing a lot better with respect to really improving those overall digital experience. But they’re under huge disruption right now. Take a look at what Google is trying to do by overlaying that. And they’re all participating. So at one point, I say financial services are doing well. And then they make these changes. Retail, a lot of market-leading changes is happening in retail. But I wouldn’t say it’s still around IT and line of business collaboration. But we are spending more time in understanding the digital platform, modernizing the platform. But are we looking at it? It’s more than just marketing and IT. We want to make sure that we’re bringing customer service to the table. We’re making sure that we’re bringing the data scientists to the table. And so that’s where we see a lot of industries struggling. So yeah, financial services, insurance, retail, those are the ones that really understand the role of their data and bringing data to the table. But even manufacturing is starting to play. Consumer packaged goods, the fact that they’re going direct is really changing their models and engaging with customers. It’s going to be an incredible 20, 21, 2, 3. I was trying to say what the decade was. I want 2020 gone. And that’s, yeah, it almost is. It almost is. We’re seeing just under the customer experience banner, we’re seeing that come up. Now every company is thinking about that. And some are actually hiring customer experience officers, like managers, to run those things. And they’re doing a good job of corralling the whole C-suite to come into this discussion and think about. Because you said those numbers are staggering. The dollars are staggering. The battleground is fierce. And every brand has got to think about making sure everybody’s involved in the decision. So we’re seeing a lot more discussions with our customers with the line of business and the IT folks are in the room together and having that, which is great. To your point, it’s not everywhere. But it certainly needs to because it’s not one team driving everything. It’s everybody working together to make it all happen. Absolutely. Before we end, I do want to build on something that Tim just said. When we do ask the question, do you have one person in charge of planning, orchestrating, and managing the overall customer experience, I didn’t say service, I didn’t say acquisition. 55% say yes, 45% say no. Digitally driven, it goes up to around 70%. So digitally driven organizations have one person in charge. But that doesn’t mean that person is the be all, end all. What they’re in charge of is remote collaboration and bring together all the executives and the CTO and the data scientists together because you can never solve it with one person. You just have to have one leader to bring everyone together for collaboration. Totally agree.

Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Tricia. I think we’re pretty much at a close here. I want to thank everyone for coming. If there’s any questions, feel free to make sure that you reach out to either Tim or myself. And we can certainly answer the question. My email is always available. This will be up on demand to after. And Tricia, anything else we need to add? Yes, thank you, Cheryl. Thank you, Tim, for a great and informative webcast. As a reminder, the on-demand version of this webcast will be available shortly. So on behalf of Adobe and 451 Research, thank you for attending, and have a great day.

Thank you.