Artificial intelligence - uncharted territory for Swiss companies?

Swiss brands have high hopes for artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand customer data and provide more relevant, personalized customer experiences while complying with GDPR regulations.This shows A recent Adobe study published as part of the Context is Everything report in November. For example, the vast majority (75 percent) of Swiss companies surveyed in the study said they give personalization top priority. Despite this zeal, however, only slightly more than one-third (35 percent) of Swiss companies currently say they are achieving the required standard in the area of personalization.

There is a considerable need to catch up

Two-thirds (66 percent) of Swiss companies said they collect too much data from too many sources, while 61 percent say they cannot currently process data fast enough. Nearly the three-quarters of Swiss companies (70 percent) see the General Data Protection Regulation as an obstacle that has held them back to some degree in personalization to date.

Various reasons - solvable problems

So there are various reasons why the personalization of the customer relationship in Switzerland is not yet as advanced as it could be in theory. At this year's Zurich Symposium on November 15, Adobe wanted to identify solutions to the problems faced by Swiss companies - and present international best cases to learn from.A welcome by Angelo Buscemi, Country Manager Switzerland at Adobe, was followed by exciting input presentations from internal stakeholders of the software company. Adobe customers also had their say: Rob McLaughlin, Head of Digital Analytics & Decisioning at entertainment provider Sky, spoke convincingly on the topic of "Customer Decisioning - Blending the Human with the Machine".

Giving control back to the companies

In a background interview with MK, Rob McLaughlin described how using data management tools "gives control back" to his company: Adobe's Audience Manager, for example, helps the company avoid relying on the judgment of external agencies for targeting and instead make its own decisions about marketing and media planning. According to Julian Kramer, Chief Experience Ambassador Central Europe at Adobe, Swiss companies could also do this with relatively little effort: "The level of analysis required for effective personalization on a large scale seemed impossible to achieve just a few years ago. But AI already makes it possible to quickly extract important customer information from huge amounts of data."

Interesting findings

The Adobe study, which was the focus of the Zurich symposium, not only provided insights into the topic of AI, but also showed that many Swiss companies are looking to recruit new staff or train existing staff in the field of marketing.IT skills, advertising skills and customer service were the three most important skills that respondents named in relation to current recruitment. When it comes to training, companies currently place particular emphasis on in-depth marketing skills, ethical awareness, technological understanding and data analysis skills.