Innovation, inspiration, integration
23 October 2017

Next March, our annual conference Impact 2018 will focus on these three key drivers of success. In this increasingly uncertain macro-economic climate, no-one will argue that the first two words are critical, not just to the success of an organisation, but also to its commercial survival.

Effective integration, however, is the key to unlocking the promise of innovation and inspiration. It can be integration of understanding and insight – frequently shorthanded as ‘the single customer view’. Just as importantly, it can be that holy grail that enables a CMI team to bring together the thousands of data and insight sources that promise so much but whose competitive potential fails to deliver because of audience fragmentation, as well as organisational ownership.

We know from our own research that a significant number of clients are still not putting their data resources to good use, and the difficulty of integration is a major barrier.

The need to ‘clean our data house’ - driven by the demands of GDPR - could also be an opportunity to re-examine the way insight sources are integrated and deployed. GDPR is certainly a major incentive to getting rid of data that isn’t helping decision-making or insight generation.

As with GDPR, integration is not something that should be left to the IT department. As researchers, just as with procurement, we need to shape the future rather than react to it. We have that opportunity now.

See you at Impact 2018 – if not before.