Three key trends encapsulate the forces shaping the consumer industry’s journey towards digital maturity:
By embedding data analytics in their digital commerce strategies, consumer companies across Southeast Asia are looking to capitalise on opportunities to better meet customer expectations and improve business performance. Achieving this, however, will require a doubling down on commercial analytics tools, such as dynamic pricing and digital marketing analytics.
Illustrative case study 1: A regional agri-business
Confronted with high logistics costs and the need to accelerate consumer uptake for its B2C digital commerce model, a regional agri-business leveraged the use of predictive data analytics to increase its productivity and conduct end-to-end customer profiling.
Illustrative case study 2: A retail chain
A retail chain with a start-up position and low market share in the digital commerce space was looking to improve its product positioning for target customers. To do so, it leveraged point of sale (POS) data to perform an integrated profiling of its end-customers and their purchase behaviours.
To truly achieve digital maturity, consumer companies in Southeast Asia will need to focus on making intentional changes to their organisational culture. This, in turn, necessitates the development of an organisational digital mindset, as well as clear leadership direction and ‘tone from the top’.
Illustrative case study 1: An Indonesia-based household products manufacturer
Constrained by limited access to data science talent within the local market, an Indonesia-based household products manufacturer adopted a fast follower strategy by investing only in proven data analytics models. To strengthen its data analytics capabilities, it also hired data analysts locally and abroad.
Illustrative case study 2: A multinational retail chain
Facing a strategic choice for a make-or-buy decision on its POS system, a multinational retail chain is in the midst of conducting pilot trials with an external vendor. To boost sales on its digital commerce channels, it is also analysing trends across different Southeast Asia markets, and analysing keyword search to drive sales in response to dynamic consumer demand.
With the subsiding of COVID-19 concerns across Southeast Asia, there has been a noticeable resurfacing of the consumer preference for offline channels. For consumer companies, this underscores the importance of developing and adopting an omnichannel approach – one that seamlessly integrates customer experiences across both online and offline channels.
Illustrative case study: A Thailand-based personal care retailer
In its move to embrace the shift to an omnichannel and data-driven business model, a Thailand-based personal care retailer created a centralised data division to support the data analytics needs of all of its business units, and merged the digital commerce sales teams with the offline sales teams to provide a more holistic omnichannel experience for its customers.
Overall, these efforts have resulted in more integrated and targeted marketing efforts, as well as more coordinated channel management. To enable more data-driven decision-making, the retailer also standardised dashboard reporting for its leadership, and introduced data governance safeguards to ensure effective master data management.
To advance in their journey towards digital maturity, consumer companies will need to focus on four critical priorities in the near to medium term: