The pace and action of insights will be an overarching focus and main investment area for many Asia Pacific (APAC) companies in 2021, according to Adobe’s 2021 Digital Trends Report.
In partnership with Econsultancy, the report surveyed 13,000 worldwide marketing, advertising, e-commerce, creative and IT professionals, including Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), India and Asia.
This new report is different from previous editions as it delves into new areas because of the pandemic. Adobe also included the impact of a distributed workforce, fundamentals of privacy and consent, and empathy as a customer experience motivation.
Last year, the pandemic had caused digital disruption and businesses realise they need to understand and act on data faster. Only 35 per cent of ANZ leaders consider that their organisation has substantial capacities in accuracy, actionability, speed, and access of insights.
However, to achieve their top marketing goals this year, 49 per cent of Asian respondents and 40 per cent from ANZ would invest in improving insights and analytics capabilities. The report further highlighted that for 33 per cent of ANZ leaders, it is an effort on personalised customer experience. Meanwhile, 35 per cent of leaders from Asia are dedicated to enabling digital customer acquisition.
Duncan Egan, Adobe’s Vice President of DX Marketing, APAC and Japan, said organisations with better access to insights are more likely to say their customers are optimistic about their digital experience than their peers with lower insight levels.
Egan added that 2020 had brought a loss of predictability for brands across every industry. Organisations of all kinds have been driven at an accelerated pace online, producing a surge of new digital clients with rising aspirations. In the digital partnership, consumers now have the upper hand, with more than half of APAC marketing respondents showing unusual shifts in consumer preferences and journeys in 2020.
A company with a strong customer experience (CX) strategy is more likely to achieve long-term growth. Egan believes that this study shows that by moving to more flexible technologies and cloud-based platforms.
It is worth noting the majority of the respondents who trust their company’s customer experience feel optimistic about their business strategy and career growth prospects.
The Challenges
APAC organisations report three significant challenges to marketing and experience. The main reasons for lack of marketing and customer experience include legacy technologies and systems, workflow issues and lack of digital skills and capabilities.
The shift to remote work will have a significant impact on businesses moving forward, says Egan. It will require new marketing strategies for reaching and keeping customers, he says.
A hybrid approach to technology – comprising of cloud and other data management systems – allows organisations to be flexible and collaborative. One third (34 per cent) say they’ve been unusually agile and able to take quick decisions.
Many organisations across APAC have already taken a hybrid approach, with 43 per cent executives in ANZ taking a cloud-based system.
Persona Data Protection Is Key In CX
A sizable respondent cohort across the region say that customer privacy and consent are critical factors in planning. However, transparency is still lacking with only a small number of leaders claiming their organisation effectively communicates how data is collected and used. Only 10% in ANZ and 13% in Asia believe they effectively communicate the value offered in exchange for customers’ consent.
Put Empathy In The Strategy
As digital convenience becomes a commodity, empathy by brands will be a crucial differentiator for customer experience. Just over a third (37 per cent) of Indian executives have significant insights into the customer mindset. Analysing and adapting to a customer’s emotional journey will be the next evolution of experience management.
CIO and CMO Must Work Together
Only a third of IT executives in ANZ claims to maintain cross-functional teams to support their marketing technology needs. IT leaders are quick to claim ownership of new digital technology over their product and marketing colleagues. Nineteen per cent agree that they want to integrate multiple systems/data sources. A sizeable number of respondents believes that using technologies like predictive analytics and chatbots have a more significant positive impact on customer experience.
Organisations, where marketing and tech teams take joint ownership of their functions, will emerge more robust in 2021, says Egan.