Originally Published on Dec 11, 2014
The concept of a 360° view, especially of customers, although it potentially applies to other things too, has been around for a substantial period of time. The idea behind the 360° view of customers is that the more you know about your customers the easier it will be to meet their needs, both in terms of products and aftersales care, and to market additional goods and services to them in the most efficient fashion. Thus a 360° view helps both in terms of customer retention and acquisition, as well as up-sell and cross-sell.
The concept of a 360° view was developed when most organisations were limited to information stored within their relational database systems, perhaps augmented by clickstream data and by information available from third parties, such as SIC codes, or location-based data. Today, we live in a very different world where there are far more sources of data that can be used to inform the organisations about customers. For example, we have call logs and emails that provide details about our previous interactions with that customer. Moreover, customers avidly pursue the use of social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, bulletin boards and so forth) and are keen to express their likes and dislikes, their preferences, and their prejudices in these formats. These new types of data, whether internal or external, offer the possibility of expanding the concept of what might be termed the traditional 360° view into an extended 360° view. This is sometimes referred to as 720° view but this is geometrically invalid as a concept so we will focus on the former terminology: the extended 360° view.
In this paper we will discuss why we believe that extending the traditional 360° view makes sense and we will give some uses that demonstrate why the extended 360° view represents an opportunity, both for those that have already implemented a 360° view and for those that have not. We will also discuss some of the technological implications of moving to, or implementing, an extended 360° view.
1. IBM: enhanced 360° view
A White Paper by Bloor Research
Author : Philip Howard
Publish date : September 2014
WhitePaper
2. IBM is in the vanguard for what
it calls an enhanced 360° view
and it is clearly well positioned to
capitalise on the future growth of
this market
Philip Howard
11. Bloor Research overview
Bloor Research is one of Europe’s leading IT
research, analysis and consultancy organisa-
tions, and in 2014 celebrates its 25th anniver-
sary. We explain how to bring greater Agility
to corporate IT systems through the effective
governance, management and leverage of
Information. We have built a reputation for
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intelligent, well-articulated communications
content and publications on all aspects of the
ICT industry. We believe the objective of telling
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• Describe the technology in context to its
business value and the other systems and
processes it interacts with.
• Understand how new and innovative tech-
nologies fit in with existing ICT investments.
• Look at the whole market and explain all
the solutions available and how they can be
more effectively evaluated.
• Filter ‘noise’ and make it easier to find
the additional information or news
that supports both investment and
implementation.
• Ensure all our content is available through
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About the author
Philip Howard
Research Director - Data Management
Philip started in the computer industry way back
in 1973 and has variously worked as a systems
analyst, programmer and salesperson, as well
as in marketing and product management, for
a variety of companies including GEC Marconi,
GPT, Philips Data Systems, Raytheon and NCR.
After a quarter of a century of not being his own boss Philip set up his
own company in 1992 and his first client was Bloor Research (then
ButlerBloor), with Philip working for the company as an associate
analyst. His relationship with Bloor Research has continued since that
time and he is now Research Director focused on Data Management.
Data management refers to the management, movement, governance
and storage of data and involves diverse technologies that include (but
are not limited to) databases and data warehousing, data integration
(including ETL, data migration and data federation), data quality, master
data management, metadata management and log and event manage-
ment. Philip also tracks spreadsheet management and complex event
processing.
In addition to the numerous reports Philip has written on behalf of Bloor
Research, Philip also contributes regularly to IT-Director.com and
IT-Analysis.comandwaspreviouslyeditorofboth“ApplicationDevelopment
News” and “Operating System News” on behalf of Cambridge Market Intel-
ligence (CMI). He has also contributed to various magazines and written a
number of reports published by companies such as CMI and The Financial
Times. Philip speaks regularly at conferences and other events throughout
Europe and North America.
Away from work, Philip’s primary leisure activities are canal boats,
skiing, playing Bridge (at which he is a Life Master), dining out and
walking Benji the dog.