Marketers have moved past questioning whether current shopping behaviors are here to stay, and have accepted that our efforts to be customer-centric simply haven’t been good enough to match demand. The bar has been raised.

To achieve true customer centricity, companies must prioritize digital transformation through data and technology. The continued struggle many companies have to consistently offer seamless experiences at the right time underscores the reality that while we may consider ourselves customer-centric, there is more work to be done.

Here’s a simple test: Can you answer yes to the following questions?

1. Can you identify loyal customers from newly acquired ones and deliver different experiences to both groups?
2. Are you able to spot the deal hunters as well as the stockpilers?
3. Can you repair relationships with consumers who had to go out of their way to source your products?
4. Are you able to understand when someone doesn’t want to hear from you and back off immediately?

The level of data access, customer intelligence and analytical power required to meet the above is a challenge, but not an impossibility. The key to achieving this level of customer centricity is scaling and connecting first-party data relationships through data collaboration.

Data governance and cloud migration set the stage

The good news for many companies is that they’ve already laid the groundwork for this endeavor through investments in data governance and migrating to the cloud. While the passage and enforcement of GDPR, CCPA and other data regulations may have once been seen as seismic events in the advertising ecosystem, they’ve actually been a forcing function for companies to organize their data, remove data silos and clearly document what they have access to and how it can be used. This knowledge is a powerful springboard for data collaboration.

Another springboard is the move to cloud infrastructure. If you’re in the middle of a cloud migration or even at the start of it, you’re in the pole position to make greater use of your customer data and bring in trusted partners.

Privacy is not one-size-fits-all

The ability to meet a variety of privacy obligations is key to enacting a successful data collaboration strategy. While some data collaboration solutions claim they are compliant with existing data regulations, these check-box guarantees are not enough to power a robust data collaboration strategy with multiple partners and permissions.

The universe of partners that can contribute to your understanding of consumers is nearly limitless. To be truly customer-centric necessitates the ability to tailor privacy controls to the level of trust required by both parties. When permissions can be easily configured and audits can be performed accurately and on demand, you can safely and securely accelerate digital transformation through data and technology.

Ideas to get started with data collaboration

Now is the time to augment the value of the investments you’ve made by layering data collaboration across your data marketing technology stack.

Depending on your business, there are a number of ways to get started with data collaboration. With each test, you can build on the results and drive toward your larger goal of achieving true customer centricity.

CPGs, or similar brands sold mostly through online and brick-and-mortar stores, can work with a single retail partner to bring in sales data to understand how to optimize campaigns for different audiences. The results can inform future tests with other partners and build first-party relationships.

Retailers can kickstart a data collaboration with a trusted supplier to pool intelligence about shared audiences. The retailer’s initial goal could be driving greater loyalty with one brand, laying the groundwork for acceleration with all of their suppliers in meeting consumers’ changing needs.

Publishers or TV providers with a strong authenticated dataset can offer better intelligence to top advertisers, encouraging them to not only spend more with them, but also to do so in a way that enhances the viewership experience.

The future is federated

On the horizon for data collaboration is another accelerant—federation. Privacy-preserving technology enables you to securely connect databases across cloud platforms, infrastructures and geographies. Think of it as bringing the model to the data, rather than the data to the model, and enabling access while reducing ownership or privacy risk.

The opportunity is enormous for companies that can scale and connect first-party consumer relationships within and across organizations. With modern privacy-preserving platforms for data collaboration available, the time between insight and results from testing initial partnerships is faster than it’s ever been.

It’s been said that the last year accelerated trends that were predicted to happen in the next several years. Now, we have the technology to match that rate of change and raise the customer centricity bar even higher.