During the last quarter of 2013 The Marketing Society and SAP ran a LinkedIn poll targeting senior marketers in the Asia-Pacific region, asking the question “Which marketing trend will be a game changer for your business in 2014?” The results from this poll indicate that Asian-Pacific marketers are shifting their focus from products and services, to engaging with their customers on their terms. Download this free Snapshot Survey report to learn more. Engage customers like never before: http://sqz.co/Kx9p8DX

1. SNAPSHOT SURVEY REPORT
Customer Engagement
Mobile, Big Data, Loyalty Are Top
Game Changers for Marketing
Asia-Pacific marketers are shifting their focus from products and services, to the customer.
B Y L A U R E N G I B B O N S PA U L
T
he marketing mindset is increasingly evolving from a focus on
products and services, to a focus on the customer. Throughout the
world, customers are always connected via their mobile devices, and
they are quick to seek and share opinions about brands on the Web.
With every click and comment, customers generate high volumes of
information about themselves that marketers are hungry to collect and
use to provide a more relevant and personalized experience. In this way,
Methodology
SAP and Marketing
Society launched
a global survey via
LinkedIn in late fall 2013
to analyze the views of
marketing executives in
the Asia-Pacific region.
Approximately 1,715
respondents from the
following countries
participated:
n ustralia/New
A
Zealand: 263
respondents
n ndia: 1,314
I
respondents
n ingapore: 138
S
respondents
Their titles included:
CXO
Vice President
Engineer
Business Owner
marketers hope to establish such a strong sense of loyalty
that customers will advocate their brands on the Web.
Respondents were asked, “Which marketing trend will be a game
changer for your business?”
Mobile
“To turn the marketing ship in this direction, senior
marketers are focused on four key areas: mobility,
harnessing customer insights through big data, inspiring
customer loyalty and providing real-time offers,” said
Katharine Schäfli, director of Marketing Society, Asia.
The mindset shift is readily apparent in a late-2013
poll of senior marketers in Australia/New Zealand,
Singapore and India who were asked to reveal which of
these four marketing trends would be a game changer
for their business.
Mobility and big data topped the list for most
respondents in all three regions, with “improving
customer loyalty” rising to the top-two rating in India
and ranking a close third in the other geographies.
So far, real-time offer management is not a pressing
concern for the Asia-Pacific region, perhaps because
this capability is dependent on first creating a strong
foundation of mobility and big data analytics.
However, respondents in these countries also
seemed to agree that both big data and mobility are
intertwined with improving customer loyalty, with each
© Copyright 2014. Marketing Society. All rights reserved.
31%
Big data
31%
Improving customer loyalty
26%
Real-time offer management
8%
None of the above
Big Data and Mobility Tie in Australia/
New Zealand
Among respondents in Australia/New Zealand, mobility
and big data insights shared the top spot (see Figure 1,
“An Even Split in Australia/New Zealand”).
February 2014 |
An Even Split in Australia/New Zealand
4%
FIGURE 1 Base: 263 respondents
Source: SAP/Marketing Society via LinkedIn
bolstering the other. “Mobile and harnessing customer
insights are enablers to driving customer loyalty,” one
respondent said. “Once you’re able to identify the
winning formula (by using insight), you’ll be able to
drive loyalty.”
Another poll respondent concurred, placing more
emphasis on mobility. “Both mobile and big data
are important game changers,” she said. “Mobile is
increasingly the preferred platform on which consumers
search and engage online. With digitization, every
piece of data is available for analysis. And increasingly
innovative solutions are being invented to harness and
visualize the data for effective actions.”
For the near term, this respondent believes mobility is
the top game changer for the B2B market, “especially
in industries with long sales cycles and low conversion
rates.” The ability to effectively harness mobile
customer insights will be critical, she added.
All in all, said one respondent, it would be dangerous
for businesses to continue competing on price alone,
noting that “improving customer loyalty is paramount.
If you can create and hold onto a loyal client and offer
value for the product or service, then you will have
long-term commitment.”

2. SNAPSHOT SURVEY REPORT Customer Engagement
|
“It’s not enough to
understand the needs
of the customer
today; you need to
forecast the needs of a
customer tomorrow.”
Singapore Eyes Big Data
For respondents in Singapore, big data slightly edged
out the other trends (see Figure 2, “Big Data Tops
the List in Singapore”). Respondents were quick to
note, however, that big data requires an upgrade in
skillsets. “Harnessing customer insights via big data
is definitely the strategy to go to, if companies are
willing to invest time and money in it,” one respondent
noted. “Big data can be daunting, as you need to sift
the gold from the sand to find the analytics that can
get you the right results.”
Loyalty Above All in India
Respondents were asked, “Which marketing trend will be a game
changer for your business?”
Improving customer loyalty
32%
Mobile
28%
Big data
21%
Real-time offer management
16%
None of the above
3%
FIGURE 3 Base: 1,314 respondents
Mobility is also very much on the radar among
Singapore respondents. “Smartphone ownership is high
with my target market,” one said. “Mobile will be the
platform, while customer insight comes in second.”
Customer Loyalty Top Trend in India
More than one-third of respondents in India named
customer loyalty as the marketing trend with the highest
impact (see Figure 3, “Loyalty Above All in India”). One
Big Data Tops the List in Singapore
Respondents were asked, “Which marketing trend will be a game
changer for your business?”
Big data
40%
Mobile
29%
Improving customer loyalty
26%
Real-time offer management
4%
None of the above
1%
FIGURE 2 Base: 138 respondents
Source: SAP/Marketing Society via LinkedIn
respondent summed up the views of many in the region:
“Only customer loyalty can be part of a long-term
strategy and can be the most effective in the survival of
the business. [The other choices] are temporary and will
not allow you to survive.”
Another respondent emphasized the importance of
not just meeting but also predicting customer needs
and desires, which involves big data analytics. “It’s
not enough to understand the needs of the customer
today; you need to forecast the needs of a customer
tomorrow,” he said. “And to do that effectively, you
need two things: to harness customer insights (big
2
Marketing Society
Source: SAP/Marketing Society via LinkedIn
data), analyze and use it to predict future customer
behavior models; and to innovate, create, develop and
bring to life the solutions to meet those behaviors.”
The importance of big data was echoed by another
respondent, who also looked further down the road at
providing those insights in real time. “Applying big data
analytics on huge amounts of data and then giving the
insights in real time so one can make the right decision
at the right time is the next game changer,” he said.
For another Indian survey participant, mobility is the
centerpiece of the marketing strategy. “All the other
things—harnessing customer insights, improving
customer loyalty, real-time offer management—depend
on the success of your enterprise mobility strategy.”
Across the Asia-Pacific region, respondents were in
agreement that driving customer loyalty is paramount.
“We must focus on creating customer loyalty,” said one
respondent. “It’s this consistent devotion to truly serving
the customer, at every point of customer contact, that
will retain the customers you’ve got and obtain a steady
stream of new customer referrals.”
A respondent from India summed up: “These same
customers will become the most effective sales team
you could ever build, spreading the good news about
your business to everyone in their network.” n
Lauren Gibbons Paul has written extensively on customer relationship management and customer experience management for
more than 15 years.
This research project was funded by a grant from SAP.