How Cognitive Computing Can Fuel Sales and CX

By Dennis McCafferty

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How Cognitive Computing Can Fuel Sales and CX

Cognitive computing can create a significant competitive edge for marketing and sales teams, improving customer experience and service and growing revenue.
Emerging Influence

61% of the CMOs and sales executives surveyed said cognitive computing will be a disruptive force in their industry.
Fleeting Forethought

Only 24% of the execs said they are working with a cognitive strategy today.
Proven Value

93% of the respondents in organizations considered "outperformers" in cognitive computing and 59% of those at other companies said these technologies are mature and market ready.
Ready and Willing

88% of those at outperformers said their organization is ready to adopt cognitive computing, but only 57% of those at other companies made that claim.
Data Destination

72% of executives at outperformers said their company is investing in cloud-based storage, but just 32% of those at other organization said they're investing in this technology.
Market Intelligence

73% of executives at outperformers said their organization collects and analyzes market data, while only 50% of those at other companies do so.
Social Smarts

57% of those at outperformers said their company collects and analyzes social media data, compared to just 51% of respondents at other companies who made that claim.
Collective Knowledge, Part I

93% of sales leaders at outperformers—but only 64% of sales execs at other companies—said they share sales data with colleagues who are responsible for marketing analytics and customer insights.
Collective Knowledge, Part II

91% of sales leaders at outperformers—but only 69% of sales execs at other companies—said they share sales data with colleagues who are in charge of product and service development.
High Expectations: CMOs

The surveyed CMOs expect the real advantage of cognitive computing lies in improved customer experience and financial results, such as increased financial yields and improved ability to identify marketing ROI.
High Expectations: Sales Execs

The sales leaders surveyed said the key benefit is achieving a 360-degree understanding of customers, so they may better predict their customers' needs and improve prospecting, lead strategy, customer service and experience.
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While the majority of sales and marketing executives believe that cognitive computing will emerge as a disruptive sales and marketing force in their industries, relatively few are working with a cognitive computing strategy today, according to a recent survey from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV). The resulting report, "From Data Deluge to Intelligent Insights: Adopting Cognitive Computing to Unlock Value for Marketing and Sales," compares companies that are considered "outperformers" on this technology innovation to the rest of the pack. Outperformers are organizations that have fully bought into the idea that cognitive computing focused on sales and marketing will play an important role in their future, and they are prepared to adopt these technologies now. In addition, they are more likely to invest in cloud-based storage to support these efforts, while collecting and analyzing market and social media data. Through these and other initiatives, these businesses have positioned themselves to gain a substantial competitive edge by maximizing the effectiveness of their sales and marketing data analysis. "Many marketing and sales professionals find themselves drowning in data that fails to deliver the value or the insights they need to serve their customers well," according to the report. "A wide variety of data analytics methods and tools exist today to help, but few offer as much promise as cognitive technologies. Cognitive systems understand unstructured information the same way humans do. They ingest vast amounts of data far faster than traditional platforms, and can reason, grasp underlying concepts and form hypotheses." More than 900 chief marketing officers and sales executives took part in the research, which was conducted by Oxford Economics.

This article was originally published on 2017-08-18

Dennis McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.