How can we know if a company is not leveraging its data?*
The go-to answer to this question is:
You know a company is not leveraging its data when it does lame things like
- Address customers as “Dear Sir / Madam” even though it knows their names and genders
- Send you a reminder for signing up for a subscription when you’ve already signed up for it
- Not realize that you abandoned a shopping cart,
and so on.
The go-to popular opinion is that new age companies leverage data very well and that traditional companies don’t leverage data at all (instead relying on gut feeling).
Once upon a time, I’d have given the above go-to answer and held the above go-to popular opinion.
But not now.
The problem with the above narrative is that new age companies make the aforementioned faux pas almost as often as traditional companies.
As I highlighted in my blog post, this includes companies like Amazon, Google, and Quora that otherwise (deservedly) have a great rep for using analytics, AI etc. for leveraging data.
To be honest, after these experiences with Digital Natives, I don’t claim to have any acid test for judging if a company is not leveraging its data.
I’m assuming that you’ve a good reason for wording your question the way you have, and have answered it accordingly.
If, instead, you really meant to ask how we can know that a company is leveraging data, I do have an acid test for judging that. If you ask that question, I’ll elaborate that acid test. Until then, here’s the Spoiler Alert: Targeted Offers that some people love and some others find creepy.