How we helped a large Belgian fashion retailer accordingly evolve into a data-driven, customer-centric organization

Our client called upon The House of Marketing and addData to help with the shift from a more gut feel and “out of previous experience” focus towards more customer-centric and data-driven decision making and marketing. The needs of the organization had also evolved over the past few years. ​Management realized that they were not set-up for future success with their organizational structure and in-house capabilities of today.  There was a need for a shift in structure and capabilities towards a more data-driven and personalized approach.

Where The House of Marketing focused on the optimization of the structure of the marketing and e-commerce department to become more future proof and data-driven, addData focused on getting the data-driven way of working up and running – being the interlinking element between data and marketing.

The project existed out of 2 tracks,

• The House of Marketing: Defining a renewed version of the marketing and e-commerce organization, future-proofing and setting -up for success to enable more data-driven and customer centric decision making
•  addData: defining and implementing a new, data-driven, way of working that enables the marketing, e-commerce and data team to communicate relevant messages towards the customers

A close collaboration between addData and The House of Marketing was ofcourse essential in defining the right organization and the right processes to enforce each other.

To define a future proof and data-driven marketing & e-commerce organization, the The House of Marketing team applied a 6-step approach. They:

1. Performed a diagnostic analysis: by performing multiple internal interviews & quantitative research, we defined the current strengths to build on, while noting gaps and opportunities ​
2. We benchmarked the current structure, process and people, and their corresponding gaps and opportunities that came out of the diagnostic, against best practices in the market. 
3. Synthesized strategy, strengths & key challenges into the main levers of the new structure: design principles were defined​
4. Drew the design of the organization blueprint: required capabilities were defined, potential organization structure was designed, and new/ adapted role descriptions were finalized ​

addData, in parallel, implemented the new data-driven way of working within the marketing and data department through 5 key levers. They:

1. Coached the marketing team to incorporate ‘data’ in the way of working: kpi goals & follow-up, segmentation, measurement, etc
2. Introduced a new way of working that focused on communicating personalized content towards the high potential segments instead of communicating messages towards traditionally grown segments
3. E2E view with focus on identifying & developing the missing pieces in the data architecture, user reporting & campaign delivery (personalization & automation)
4. Translated customer shopping behavior into insights & customer kpi’s, driving marketing strategy, decision making & performance follow-up
5. Definition & creation of a data analytic toolbox consisting of: kpi dashboards, customer insights dashboards and campaign measurement

By the end of the project, our consultants had reached the following results:

The House of Marketing:

A ready-to-implement marketing & omnichannel organization chart 2.0 that enables the organization to move towards a more data-driven and customer centric way of working​, including:

• Crystalized to-be vision & strategy ​

• Alignment on where we want to go
• Alignment on the key strategic building blocks

• Definition of the key opportunities to focus on​ when pursuing the above vision and corresponding strategic building blocks
  • Definition of the key opportunities to grow in when developing a future proof marketing, e-commerce and data organization
• Inspiration via best practice benchmarks ​
  • Different organizational blueprints of other companies/ departments that tackled similar challenges
• Capability gap analysis that shows on which capabilities extra focus is required​
  • Analysis of capability importance vs. capability maturity: which capabilities are most crucial when rolling out the new organization, and which capabilities are most mature
  • Defining the gap between importance and maturity and define a growth plan accordingly
• Detailed new and adapted role descriptions per building block
  • Linked to the new organization chart 2.0 – adapted role descriptions per building block of this organization chart to start recruiting for each building block   ​

addData:

We defined & implemented a data driven marketing roadmap, including data in all phases of marketing decision.

Setup & delivery of data driven program

• Delivery of an opportunity scan: Showing how much potential is there in the customer base
• Delivery & execution of an E2E roadmap to get from an as-is to a data driven to-be

Optimization of marketing ROI

• Kicked off campaign testing on segments, channels, promotion, CTA’s to find the effective marketing mix
• Delivery of actionable marketing kpi’s in line with overall strategy: kpi definition, dashboard creation, targets analysis

Design & delivery of analytic data tools & insights

• Delivery of insights dashboard to better understand  their data
• Delivery of campaign dashboards to evaluate cross channel and campaigns on ROI, vs similar campaigns and segmented response
• Delivery of several customer, shopping, and competitor analysis to support and validate other strategic projects

E2E marketing process engineering

• Campaign flow implementations to allow more data driven dynamic content in Journey and campaign communication
• New campaign briefing approach to integrate targets from kpi’s & insights from data
• Coaching tracks of marketing team to include data insights in their day to day work