Thoughts on the Microsoft-SAP-Adobe Open Data Alliance

This week, Microsoft, SAP, and Adobe (I’ll call it the MAS alliance moving forward) announced an “Open Data Initiative” or ODI. The general consensus is that this is a competitive response to the increasing domination of Salesforce.com in the CRM and marketing technology space, whose PEPM (per employee, per month) SaaS (software-as-a-service) CRM platform has […]

Building Data Intuition for Marketers

The more I interact with seemingly sophisticated companies who fat finger their attempts at personalization, the more I appreciate the efforts of companies who really get me. You would think I’m referring to the independent corner coffee shops, but it’s when a behemoth enterprise somehow manages to establish a relationship with me that I’m truly impressed. […]

Beware of False Profits, Which May Come to You in AI clothing

With all of the hype around AI, don’t overlook the importance of Human Intelligence to ensure your analytics efforts are addressing the right problems

Measuring Return on Analytics

The Challenge: What Value Does Data Science Drive? First of all, a note on scope and audience: this article has to do with marketing analytics/data science (I use the terms interchangeably), and is written as such. While these concepts should absolutely be useful for executives in other areas (biotech, manufacturing, operations, etc.), all of the […]

Six Early Go-to-Market Trends and Tips for 2019

With 2019 just a few months away, it’s time to talk about a few clear trends that will have substantial impact on how leading firms go-to-market in 2019. For 25 years, we’ve been fortunate enough to work with top brands and senior executives to identify and capitalize on key go-to-market trends. This year has proven […]

Ask Three Questions to Ensure Your 2019 Go-to-Market Strategy is a Success

It’s almost Fall – back from the beach, leaves are changing, and starting in October, it’s 2019 strategic planning season. As we have written in previous blogs, the discipline of go-to-market strategy development and execution is changing rapidly. The traditional exercises of branding, messaging, new product launch, channel strategies, and setting financial targets remain. But […]

The Power of Personas

I’ve always been intrigued by the ability of an effective coach to enhance the skills of a highly successful athlete. How do you motivate a decorated veteran like Serena Williams to compete at Wimbledon? How does Michael Phelps’ coach inspire him to break yet another Olympic record? Successful coaching requires understanding the goals, needs and […]

Why Storytelling is the New Market Intelligence KPI

Recently, a client pulled me aside after an intelligence readout and asked for 5 minutes of my time in a one-on-one setting. As a professional services provider, situations like this make you brace to hear that your contract may be in jeopardy. Instead, what she conveyed to me was not only NOT surprising, but was […]