Tata Teleservices Chief Information Officer Ashish Pachory, talking about big data, said CIOs must recognize the importance of managing customer expectations at each stage of the life-cycle which in turn must spur the deployment of IT tools and processes to garner deeper customer insights.
Excerpts of the interview with Baburajan K of TelecomLead.com
What are some key market trends when it comes to big data?
It has become very relevant for marketing campaigns to leverage big data insights, which can effectively personalize communication to individual customers of the brand, or even by region. Sizeable bulks of Indian millennials are of the exhibitionist class, constantly looking to broadcast their views on everything from their day-to-day lives to the brands they use.
With the advent of digital platforms, millennials are now actively offering and acting on insights, opinions and recommendations from those they consider their friends. In addition to analysing all the transactional data generated by businesses, it is important for companies to keep their ear to the ground, by assimilating all the relevant information shared on social media sites, to provide solutions that are tailored to fit individual needs.
If brands want to reach a specific audience, particularly, the millennial generation, then they need to think, feel and behave exactly as their audience does, regardless of the platform or medium. This consumer trend is one of the main pull factors for the enterprise adoption of big data analytics amounting to smarter marketing campaigns and better management of customer experience.
In India and across the globe, a gradual shift can be noticed from enterprises just familiarizing themselves with big data to actual implementation of big data solutions.
Additionally, the world is facing a dearth of data scientists and analysts adept at mining big data and subsequently gleaning insights from it. Thus companies are seen to be increasingly focusing efforts on skill development sessions for employees while also automating several of the processes, making it easier for adoption by existing IT human resources.
What are the big data demands of today’s CIOs?
For successful adoption of big data, cooperation between leadership teams across disciplines is crucial. The focus of CIOs today is to identify opportunities to streamline business processes through investments in data management. The CIO must recognize the importance of managing customer expectations at each stage of the life-cycle which in turn must spur the deployment of IT tools and processes to garner deeper customer insights.
Owing to the sheer growth in volume, velocity and variety of data, it becomes impossible for traditional desktop analytics tools to analyze it. Thus enterprises need to invest in advanced analytics that can deduce, compress and store this data to give fresh business insights. Finally, ensuring requisite skill set in the organization to derive gains from big data is another key battle that CIOs need to win.
How is TTSL using big data?
At present, there is a growing mandate across the Tata Group of companies to effectively use big data solutions to solve business problems and Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is a key participant in this journey. TTSL has been one of the early movers in the usage of big data solutions in India, which has resulted in very efficient solutions that also deliver information in a timely manner.
While the previous generation was happy to consume any content or offering by a brand, the millennial generation wants brands to hear their voices and incorporate their opinions before creating anything for them. Keeping this insight in mind, we place solid emphasis on end-to-end customer experience management. Big data enables the brand to analyze individual customer requirements and use the insights to enable personalized delivery of service through a responsive customer service organization and a dynamic information technology eco-system.
How does TTSL plan on using the technology going forward?
At TTSL, technology is at the heart of our operations. We draw insights and preferences on all aspects of our customers’ behaviour against many different criteria ranging from usage patterns to customer feedback. We can then translate this into a personalized experience – not only in the specialized data and voice packages – but also in providing individualized customer support.
This strategy makes perfect business sense as customers tend to patronize and relate better to a brand whose products and services can be personalized. We also see a strong future in utilization of big data analytics for network management. Owing to the growing volumes of data that we receive from customers, there is higher potential for leveraging this into meaningful business insights to further enhance the customers’ experience.
What does the future hold in terms of big data?
The big data market in India is expected to grow at nearly 38 per cent annually, reaching $153.1 million in 2014; according to a study conducted by International Data Corp. Yet another study by EMC suggests that 91 per cent of Indian businesses are already aware of the potential benefits of big data. These insights are promising, and it’s only a matter of time before the adoption rate of big data also increases exponentially as enterprises strive to gain a competitive edge. The need of the hour is to encourage talent that is able to make sense of the data; while driving awareness amongst stakeholders to effectively utilize the insights derived from these analytics.
Image source: Tata Teleservices
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