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Contact usThe Personalization Imperative
The beating heart of enterprise growth and market leadership
Today, delivering experiences that resonate on a personal level is not just desired — it's expected. Firms that are able to deliver tailored experiences consistently and at scale are paving their way toward competitive success and long-term growth.
In our global research report, we evaluated 600 senior business and technology leaders from Europe, the US and APAC and the strides they are making across industries in five pivotal domains of experience:
Total experience (TX)
Designing and delivering exceptional experiences in a holistic and integrated way for employees, customers and users across multiple channels.
Customer experience
(CX)
The experience of customers throughout their buying journeys and relationships with a company
Employee experience
(EX)
Encompassing the totality of interactions an employee encounters within an organization
User experience
(UX)
The digital experience of users as they interact with products and services
Multi-experience
(MX)
Cultivating a cohesive user environment amidst a gamut of devices and platforms
Areas where CXOs are seeing improvements in personalization:
Amidst a shifting digital landscape, consumer service companies are redesigning their wider infrastructure aimed at building human connections, creating a common consumer-centric culture right across employees, partners and customers. This could involve streamlining operations through automation and digital self-service or enhancing the overall supply chain experience. Operating with a greater agility and entrepreneurial mindset, these forward-thinking businesses are looking to deliver brilliant experiences cost-effectively to drive innovation, build strong brands, maximize advocacy and drive growth.”
Chief Growth Officer,
TMT and RCPG Industries, HCLTech
But achieving consistency, personalization and scalability together is no easy feat
Experience leaders to see 26% growth in implementing total experience, while beginners lag at 2%
The stark realities of growth rates draw a line between experience leaders and beginners — with leaders implementing all dimensions of experience (CX, EX, UX, MX and TX) in the next three years soaring by 26%, towering over the meager 2% for beginners.
Experience maturity stage by industry
Consumer services
Financial services
Travel and transport
Manufacturing
Life sciences
Technology
Energy and utilities
You have to look at different kinds of customers, different kinds of employees with different workflows and then at different kinds of users for the product or service itself. But then you have to see that all of these are mutually reinforcing. For example, if you have some automation that provides a good customer experience, it will likely provide a better experience for the employees and free them up from mundane tasks. The key is how the organization actually brings it all together so that you have a truly integrated vision of experience leadership.”
Chief Growth Officer, Europe and Africa,
Diversified Industries, HCLTech
Three core action points:
Make experiences relevant through data and AI
Utilize data and AI to personalize experiences for customers, employees and users, leveraging GenAI for deeper insights and tailoring content, services and products for stakeholders
Deliver experiences at scale with cloud and SaaS
Leverage cloud and SaaS solutions for scalable experiences through rapid deployment, enhanced flexibility and access to specialized solutions, ultimately meeting evolving user needs
Cultivate an experience-led organization
Crafting a comprehensive strategy that integrates technological advancement, cultural transformation, organizational restructuring and operational enhancement to improve customer-centricity, collaboration and agility
Three core action
points:
Make experiences relevant through data and AI
Experience leaders elevate experiences with generative AI
Financial institutions lead with a 60% adoption rate of GenAI for unstructured data analysis
Financial services organizations strategically deploy GenAI's capabilities for extracting insights from unstructured data, leading the race with a 60% adoption rate. They strategically deploy GenAI solutions to derive insights from various sources, such as historical service interactions, market trends, individual transactions and credit scores. These solutions empower frontline employees to generate predictions and insights that enhance their interactions with customers. Moreover, this approach facilitates the democratization of data access, unlocking the complete potential of unstructured data across the entire organization.
At Schwab, we approach and evaluate new technologies with a focus on the value they can deliver, whether it's creating an easier or more accessible experience, or giving clients the ability to personalize how they invest or interact with us. A recent example of this is the launch of Schwab Investing Themes, which leverages natural language processing to mine terabytes of data and millions of public documents to identify publicly traded companies based on their relevance to an investment theme that is of personal interest to an investor.”
Andrew D’Anna
Head of Retail Experience,
Strategy & Risk, Charles Schwab
Beginners leveraging data and AI to close the gap with experience leaders
Leaders who have fully or largely implemented data and AI to personalize experiences are projected to grow by 54% (from 59% to 91%) in the next three years. Interestingly, Beginners are expected to see a substantial 170% growth rate (from 20% to 54%) during the same period. This highlights how beginners are leveraging data and AI to bridge the digital divide between them and leaders, enhancing their ability to make experiences increasingly relevant.
Percentage of firms that have made large progress in implementing AI and data solutions
Deliver experiences at scale with cloud and SaaS
Cloud and SaaS integration among experience leaders surging to 96%, beginners catching up at 68% in
next three years
Looking ahead, projections suggest a substantial shift within the next three years, with nearly all leaders (96%) expected to fully or largely integrate cloud and SaaS solutions, while beginners will also see an uptick in adoption, reaching 68%. This indicates a narrowing gap of 28 percentage points from the current 41 percentage points between leaders and beginners, emphasizing the increasing significance of cloud and SaaS technologies across the spectrum of businesses to scale all forms of experiences.
Percentage of firms that have largely or fully implemented cloud and SaaS to deliver experiences
Reliance on cloud experts to reach 42% among experience leaders
Forward-looking enterprises are leveraging cloud to enhance their responsiveness to market changes and better cater to customer needs. However, these enterprises not only face large-scale operations, but also intricate complexities. Consequently, there's a noticeable trend among leaders to engage third-party cloud service experts for tailored solutions and flexible options to alleviate these challenges. Currently, at 28% of leaders, this is expected to grow to 42% in the next three years.
Financial services institutions often have complex structures, operation workflows and legacy systems, largely driven by risk management imperatives and concerns about security and regulations. This is why we are seeing them increasingly harnessing specialized cloud solutions tailored to their unique requirements to enable seamless integration. This is crucial to ensure smooth operations and mitigate disruptions, thereby unlocking the full potential of cloud.”
Srinivasan Seshadri
Chief Growth Officer and Global Head,
Financial Services, HCLTech
Consumer Services braced for a 56% surge in SaaS application utilization
Over the next three years, we anticipate a 22% increase among experience leaders in utilizing SaaS solutions to access a diverse array of specialized applications. The figure is highest in the consumer services sector, where a a jump of 56% is expected, highlighting that industry's pronounced emphasis on agility and responsiveness to market demands.
Utilization of SaaS to access a diverse array of specialized applications by consumer services
By putting our data lake in the cloud and providing SaaS-based analytical tools, we provide our executives with access to a central set of data for their own purposes. If you are in finance, you can use data for financial reports. If you are on the commercial side, you can draw on customer data.”
Group Head of IT and Data, R&D,
Danone
Cultivate an
experience-led organization
Experience leaders drive top-down imperative via
value-based funding
Creating an experience-led organization aimed at enhancing total experience is predominantly steered from the top down by experience leaders who dictate how programs are funded and aligned to value streams. This trend is expected to persist among leaders, with the percentage using value-based funding increasing from 48% now to 53% over the next three years. In contrast, among beginners, the share using value-based funding will grow from 27% now to 40%, still significantly below the level among experience leaders.
The most successful experience-led companies are those that provide clear top-down communication on the purpose for the change.”
Shrikanth Shetty
Chief Growth Officer, Americas,
Life Sciences and Healthcare Industries, HCLTech
Majority of experience leaders to democratize innovation through citizen development
We also observe a broader strategy adopted by experience leaders to instill a culture of creativity and experimentation throughout their organizations. One notable avenue is the promotion of citizen developer programs, aimed at empowering non-technical staff to actively contribute by building solutions. Through these initiatives, leaders aim to democratize innovation within their organizations. The share of leaders promoting citizen development programs will rise from 41% now to 51% in the next three years, reflecting a heightened commitment to fostering a culture of inclusivity and collaborative innovation.
To make it easier for non-technical staff, at Qualcomm, we provide low code/no code tools and teams to create apps and experiences.”
Senior IT VP & Chief Information Officer,
Qualcomm
Beginners embrace
bottom-up strategy, diverging from experience leaders
To drive total experience, beginners diverge from experience leaders, adopting a bottom-up strategy by installing dedicated teams and defining responsibilities. Currently, 46% of beginners take this approach, compared to 26% among experience leaders. This discrepancy will persist but gradually diminish over the next three years, with 47% of beginners prioritizing these initiatives, compared to 35% among experience leaders.
We promote a continuous improvement and innovation culture by encouraging employees to share ideas, experiment with innovative approaches and learn from failures. We focus on enhancing the employee experiences by accelerating a culture of continuous learning and development, which helps us to deliver overall business success.”
Bala Sathyanarayanan
EVP and CHRO, Greif
Bottom line
For those enterprises that are not experience leaders, the window of opportunity to act is narrow. To make progress quickly, they should follow the path of the leaders and prioritize and invest in enhancing experiences across the board.
With a strategic focus on cultivating an experience-led organization, harnessing the potential of data and Al and leveraging cloud and SaaS technologies, firms can position themselves not only to meet the expectations of today's discerning consumers and employees but also to drive sustainable growth and efficiency in the long run.
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