Maximize Operational Data with Jahia's Embedded CDP

If data is the new gold, then consider the rush well and truly underway.

Enterprises have been spurred into action, joining the digital drive; that means becoming one with the modern landscape and connecting with users via an ever-increasing stable of touchpoints, all to the end of staying competitive.

A side effect of this is that all organizations, big and small, have begun generating vast quantities of data; intentional or not. The original digital pioneers were those who recognized the precious insight just waiting to be extracted from their silos, but the competition has wised up — everyone’s looking to be ‘data driven’ these days.

Enter ‘Big Data’ — your gold-sieve on steroids; a statistical methodology used to comb through and extract actionable insight from data sets too large for traditional statistical analysis. The concept is relatively straightforward — conglomerate data from all your digital touchpoints & silos, cleanse it and start trawling for a nugget of golden wisdom which can drive your corporate narrative.

This approach has seen widespread adoption from the likes of sports teams to airlines — with staggering results.

And now? Everyone’s hiring a Chief Data Officer — and the Data Scientists, prospectors who can technically implement a CDO’s vision, have become almost as valuable as actual gold.

The temptation when collecting so much raw material is to cast as wide a net as possible, but Big Data isn’t a magic wand; it’s not going to conjure up insight from thin air, it has to be directed — trying to squeeze value from a behemoth set of data isn’t necessarily going to produce results.

The problem facing enterprises on the frontier, ones who have developed a refined strategy, is that they’re collecting such sheer volumes of data from so many different sources. Even with properly implemented tactics, targeting areas that are perceptively rich, they can still fall short of achieving maximum yield — preventing both a truly data-driven digital experience and corporate strategy.

Fear not my fellow settlers, and allow me to put to bed this over-extended metaphor of the Data Wild-West by saying this:

There’s a new sheriff in town.

The Customer Data Platform.

Marshal your Customer Data with a CDP

To recap, one of the biggest issues facing the modern enterprise is trying to extract actionable insight from an ever-growing number of digital touchpoints, ones that produce a wide variety of data; transactional, behavioral, or otherwise.

If that wasn’t enough there’s also an expectation that, with this insight, the enterprise will maintain a coherent user profile across their entire digital experience; one which incorporates interactions from the site level all the way down to usage metrics — and let’s not forget social media & customer service channels too.

Enter the ‘Customer Data Platform’ or ‘CDP’.

Source: Customer Data Platform — A revenue engine or just another buzzword?

The CDP refines the technologies and ideas of ‘Big Data’; it’s a packaged software that simplifies the process of creating unified customer data profiles. These profiles — despite being collated from different tools with varied output — are still easily accessible.

From setup, you capture data at touch points that reflect meaningful interactions with your users. This coalesces into a complete customer record; one chock full of insight that can further mold your corporate narrative, producing fluid personalizations across your entire digital experience.

If you combine this with an appropriate strategy focused on which digital touchpoints to tap into, you can paint a truly unique picture of your end-user. The value of this profile isn’t confined to the digital world; brick & mortar branches, as well as support centers, are poised to reap the benefits. That’s why implementing a CDP is quite possibly the best way to aggregate ‘first party’ profiling data — it acts as a framework, massaging varied data output into a one-stop-shop of customer record truth.

And therein lies the magic of a CDP; it makes the data do the work for you.

Data-First

Despite the myriad benefits a CDP can bring to the organizational table, there’s a level of commitment hesitancy among a select few business leaders. They’re either worried that the CDP is just another data silo cleverly disguised as an ops. tool, or they fear that — if CDPs really are what they claim to be — they’re extremely difficult to implement, requiring a rip & replace approach to martech infrastructure. 

CDPs are, by nature, not just another database. The keyword here is Platform — with open APIs and interoperability as a core component, the CDP prioritizes interchanging key records as opposed to the mass storage of every conceivable data field. They’re all about connecting different systems with real-time data exchange that maintains a 360 and consistent customer profile that influences the day-to-day operational understanding of your audience, more so than contributing (at least initially) towards strategic organizational objectives. 

This structural design also has an impact when it comes to implementation; CDPs are very easy to slot into your existing tech stack, with some requiring almost no implementation effort. Take Jahia for example — our CDP is embedded within our wider Digital Experience Platform (DXP). So if you go the full-DXP route, you get a combined data, content, and application approach i.e. a full visual content management system and no-code integrations to 450+ of the most popular business apps on the market, all of which are connected directly to the CDP. But maybe you already have a CMS or don’t want to overhaul your digital portfolio just yet — no matter. Simply embed a piece of JavaScript into your site header and immediately start generating user-profiles and customer data, with analytics to help segment your audience. Once you’ve built up your segments you can additionally start delivering personalized user journeys and content experiences — again, all via a simple script. 

So Why Wait? 

The data gold rush is well and truly underway.

Almost every organization is looking to bake data into their corporate foundation, in order to propel strategy and further develop customer relationships. ‘Big Data is at the center of this, of that there’s no doubt — but it’s not an easy thing to just start doing.

With powerful, open-source solutions available like the Jahia DXP — a tool that isn’t a black box and that puts your customer relationships at the forefront, whilst requiring much less setup than a data warehouse project — why wouldn’t you be looking at a CDP to revolutionize your approach?

Learn more about Jahia's Digital Experience Platform.