Transform your customers' omnichannel experience with an analytics center of excellence

Transform your customers’ omnichannel experience with an analytics center of excellence

Creating connected and personalized experiences across channels and platforms requires more than just data — you need the right team and the right processes. Here’s how to get started:

Digital transformation for customer experience begins with data. To create customer experiences that are real-time, personalized, and able to span across multiple channels, you need the right customer data to drive the decisions powering that experience. However, customer data isn’t enough — you also need a plan for how that data will be organized and how it will be used to make better decisions. Determining the customer data that will be needed, the best ways to organize it, and how teams will be expected to activate upon it is the work of an analytics center of excellence (COE).

What is an analytics center of excellence?

At the most basic level, an analytics COE is a group of specialized experts within your organization tasked with driving the development and adoption of data-driven strategy across all business units and teams. For most organizations, the analytics COE will be tasked with:

As you can see from the list above, creating an analytics COE requires specialized skillsets that span across a wide range of subject matter. Your team members will need a solid organizational structure and effective processes to move forward in each of these areas.

Defining your vision and setting the goal for your analytics COE

Every analytics COE begins with a vision. For some businesses, that vision is to use data-driven online marketing to optimize current and future marketing campaigns. For other companies, it’s a push to streamline internal operations or to enable true digital transformation that uses real-time data to create personalized omnichannel experiences. Your company’s vision of how data can grow and change your organization for the better is the first step.

Ideally, that vision comes from the executive level, but it is possible to build the foundation of an analytics COE within a smaller unit of the organization. Tie this vision to a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goal to determine necessary roles and where to focus your initial efforts.

How to determine your analytics COE roles

There are several roles within an analytics COE, and your organization may have some or all of these already in place. In some instances, these roles may be merged or there may be overlap in the skills and competencies of your team members. What’s important is to have a cohesive team structure with clearly defined expectations for how your analytics COE will operate. Some of the more common roles are:

One last note on team structure. Allocate hours for each role to work on the COE that are separate from any ongoing day-to-day expectations. Treat the analytics COE like a top-priority project and provide adequate time and resources to ensure the work can be done in a timely manner.

Get started with the ASA framework and the analytics COE

As you develop the team that will drive your analytics COE, it may be challenging to know where to begin. Adobe recommends starting with an analytics audit to understand what data you currently have, what data you need, and any silos that require integration for a full view of your customers’ data. As you work through the audit and develop a plan for the reporting that will be necessary to facilitate your digital transformation, think ASA — accessible, scalable, and actionable.

Make your data accessible

Make your data scalable

Make your data actionable

Remember that an analytics COE is about creating a process that allows you to progress toward your data-driven customer experience vision for your organization. As a part of this process, plan for continual iteration and improvement. Once established, your business will have a powerful advantage in driving the kinds of insights that will transform your customers’ experience and empower your teams to develop new ways of engaging with customers to drive sustained value.

Click here to learn more about how Adobe Customer Journey Analytics can help you discover actionable insights for your business.

Ereika Collins is a dedicated principal digital strategist specializing in digital transformation, value realization, and personalization at scale. In her time working for Adobe, Collins has led complex strategic engagements to drive adoption, improve customer acquisition, grow CLV and establish data-driven, customer-centric methodologies for delivering personalized experiences at scale.

By approaching engagements through the lens of generating measurable, high-impact outcomes, Collins ensures that her clients have a thorough understanding of the people, processes, and technologies required to create and implement omnichannel initiatives that drive continued customer engagement and revenue.