Nov 3, 2024

B&T Published on: 4th November 2024 at 10:40 AM 10 Min Read L-R: Will Griffith, VP & GM, APJ, Tealium; Emma Gray, enterprise account exec, Braze; Matthew Zele, cloud & ISV lead ANZ, Snowflake; Anurag Saluja, APAC partner lead, AWS. SHARE Artificial intelligence is potentially the greatest opportunity for business and society since the Industrial Revolution. But without the proper foundations in place, what could be a launchpad for growth may turn into a quagmire. To help unpack what the organisations of the future need to do today to ensure they are not left behind tomorrow, Tealium gathered industry leaders from around the country for an enlightening morning of discussion. Represented at the Organisation of the Future summit were brands including Country Road, Monash and Visit Victoria and tech players including AWS, Snowflake and Braze. For the experts on stage, it was clear that businesses needed to have rigorous control of their data to allow generative AI to work its magic but be agile enough to operate in real-time, responding to opportunities and challenges as they arrive. Grasping The AI Opportunity “Everybody should be thinking about how AI can change how they work as a business, in their function, in their department, in their role and the opportunity for them to evolve from a career point of view,” expanded Will Griffith, Tealium’s VP and GM for APJ. “The next generation of business leaders are thinking about [gen AI] differently. They’re not thinking of it as a threat—is it going to take my job? They’re thinking ‘Why wouldn’t I use it?’” This change in mindset is in its infancy within businesses. But while the upside risk of not using AI can seem minimal at the moment, the downside risk in just a few years will be mammoth. Anurag Saluja, AWS’ APAC partner lead, explained that the only constant in the world of digital marketing was customers looking for products to be cheaper, better and faster. However, generative AI has completely changed the equation. “It has been estimated that generative AI will cause a seven per cent uplift to GDP and it is expected to touch 66 to 70 per cent of jobs. Gen AI will be the next phase of industrialisation,” he added. Getting your business ready for that level of change might seem like an insurmountable task. However, Tealium is already a step ahead and constantly iterating its products to improve their readiness for this sweeping change. “Everyone here is probably testing, using and investing in different AI capabilities across their business. That’s only going to grow,” said Nick Dennis, Tealium’s regional VP, solution consulting, APJ. “A lot of the value that businesses will realise from generative AI is through improving customer experience—whether it’s customer service, digital assistants or building customer relationships.” There is one potential fly in the ointment, however. Without organised, labelled, filtered and consented customer data that can be accessed at speed, generative AI can be nonsensical and slow at best and hallucinatory at worst. Nick Dennis, regional VP, solution consulting, APJ, Tealium. However, Tealium for AI offers businesses secure data collection and transfer with strict compliance measures that can obfuscate and encrypt data to ensure customer privacy is maintained, regardless of what they may or may not consent to. Plus, Tealium for AI is allowing businesses to move from updating their customer data, “daily, weekly or even monthly” in real-time. “The more we can move towards real-time, the more value you’re going to get when you activate that data across the customer experience,” added Dennis. Horses For Courses: Why A Monostack Might Not Make You A Front Runner To make AI adoption at an enterprise level a success, businesses need to partner with tech vendors to ensure data collection is compliant with privacy laws, for instance, and the deployment of that data is straightforward. Some of the largest tech players are adopting “more monolithic” strategies and trying to show their clients that all their digital and data needs can be met under one roof. These tech players, ostensibly, facilitate customer data management, the building of custom AI tools and even the deployment of customer data. But there is another way—and it may offer more opportunities for businesses. Tealium, along with its partners including Braze, Snowflake and AWS, have advocated for a “best of breed” approach. This focuses on using specialised but interoperable platforms for each segment of the digital marketing journey, rather than entrusting all of your data and its deployment to a monostack. The incoming AI era will require businesses to be nimble, so deeper specialisation and fewer layers of proprietary complexity through a best-of-breed approach will likely reap benefits as Mathew Zele, cloud & ISV lead ANZ, Snowflake explained. “We can help organisations realise their use cases much faster. Bringing in a service organisation or a systems integrator that can help deliver that outcome while you’re focused on the task at hand,” he said. “You might look at building a bespoke model and have a team of people engineering it over 12, 18 or 20 months or do you look at pulling something down, pushing a couple of buttons, starting to ingest the data and start to get insights on customers?” Zele added. Tealium’s approach is disrupting the status quo in the market which has tended towards consolidation and monopolisation of businesses and services. However, it’s an approach that has already borne fruit for a variety of businesses— most notably REA Group. The real estate giant favoured Tealium and its flexibility and scalability compared to full-stack options. REA Group had faced challenges as it grew with custom-built tools, siloed data and varying levels of channel sophistication. This required the business to adopt a unified data solution for effective collaboration and personalisation across its dual-sided marketplace. After a rigorous evaluation process, REA selected Tealium for its real-time capabilities and Braze for omni-channel communication. The integration of Tealium has allowed REA to process over 65 million daily events, execute real-time campaigns, deliver 7.5 million personalised recommendations daily, and achieve significant increases in user engagement and media optimisation while streamlining its tech stack for cost efficiency. With Tealium on board, REA was able to manage user data and activate it in real-time—with proprietary tools, that simply would not have been possible. That level of flexibility, delivered through deep expertise, will be essential for businesses looking to change their fortunes with AI. Laying The Data Foundations For Strategic Success As well as partner vendors, Tealium hosted several clients at its Organisation of the Future event. Amin Foda, director of marketing infrastructure at Monash University, explained that it is currently setting up a “CDP Council” to manage its reams of student, alumni, staff and donor data, as well as other stakeholders. “It brings stakeholders together into a community to build the strategy moving forward, regulate what we’re doing and ensure they understand their role on the council. You’re not there to decide on the tech if you’re coming from marketing as a campaign manager, you’re coming in to provide use cases or happenings in your space so we can try to figure out solutions from the tech side,” he explained. L-R: Caitlin Riordan, VP customer success APJ, Tealium; Amin Foda, director, marketing infrastructure, Monash University; Sarah Rout, head of customer engagement, Country Road Group; Chris Rundle, director – digital, data and insights, Visit Victoria. “Everyone on the Council has agreed to the tech, not just a random step forward. We haven’t launched it yet, we’re still in the process of putting it together but it’s complementary to our refreshed CDP strategy. It’s going to be a big change for us.” Bringing a CDP into existence at a business is not as simple as plugging in any other piece of tech—though it would be more transformational if done correctly. For Sarah Rout, head of customer engagement at Country Road Group, Tealium’s CDP is not simply a marketing tool—it’s far more consequential for the business. “It drives business value and it sits within the entire business’ strategy,” she explained. With Tealium’s CDP, businesses can turn data into an asset—truly making it the new oil. When combined with AI, data can entirely transform a business.