Using data for improved customer experiences and managing data securely were key points of discussion between a financial services CISO and a consumer media CEO at IBM’s “Financial Industry Leaders Winning in a Digital World” meeting in Manhattan in October.
The panelists were Wells Fargo & Co. EVP/Chief Information Security Officer Gary Owen and Worth Media CEO Juliet Scott-Croxford. I moderated the event. Scott-Croxford started out explaining why the transformation to multi-platform media is so important. “In a world where we have become so digital and impacted by the evolution of different types of tech, so have the habits of the consumers of our content. We recognize that we have to reach our audience, wherever they are.”
Data Management
“How our community consumes our content on Worth.com helps to inform things like how we program an event, the type of content and editorial that we write, ... because we know it's of interest to our audience.”
The captured data enables Worth to deepen the relationship with their audience members, and it allows Worth to not only improve their product but also demonstrate to partners and sponsors the return on their marketing investment “Our foundation of having a data-and-digital platform is essential to being able to run a functioning, profitable, scaling business,” Scott said.
Data protection
Owen is focused on the Wells Fargo customers’ experiences, too, but everything in his world flows through the filter of security; that is, protecting the data — and customers’ money — from getting into the wrong hands and devices. “I want to remove the friction out of the environment to enable the business to be as successful as possible without sacrificing security,” he told the meeting attendees.
“The goods and services that we're trying to get to our users … by mobile or multichannel, we care that you feel that Wells Fargo is your partner, your friend, and we’re delivering an experience in the same way that Juliet does with Worth.”
“I want to be far ahead of innovation from a security perspective,” Owen said, “so as innovation rolls into our technology platforms and our products, the amount of change and friction that I have to insert to maintain the security we're looking for is small.”
He advised the business leaders in the room that the key to security is to “make the information you have less valuable, so it's less likely to be stolen; or, if it is stolen, you don't care. And for what's really valuable, you put as much protection, effort, control, and monitoring” in place.
Storage
The subject then turned to the cloud and data storage. “There's lots of ways to split data,” Owen said, “and the question is, should it all be together? Does that enable the best products and services; and, at what risk? Or what challenge does that create… because your information could be commingled with other information that may not be particularly valuable from your perspective.
I asked if it is better to store data all together or in separate locations. Owen responded, “My take would be fewer locations is always better, but information should be temporal and transitory … How long does it need to be there? ... If you use it occasionally, then make it temporal, make it go away. If you're not sure you'll ever use it, don't put it in. Too often, data scientists of the world think more is always better, and I'm not sure I believe that.”
“You want to have as little information as you need to execute,” he said. “Once you go beyond that, you're taking an unnecessary, often uneducated or not well thought through set of risks as a result.”
Scott-Croxford mentioned a business decision related to the amount of data to capture. “If you think about it from the customer experience point of view,” she said, “we also want to create an experience to be as frictionless as possible. There are calls to action or things that we make sticky on our site to be able to capture data, but you also don't want to put up barriers to stop people from consuming more content. …. We'd like to understand who is engaging with our content by capturing name and email so we can make it better and more relevant. We would stop there, unless we're going all the way through to some kind of transaction such as a purchasing a ticket for an event or subscription; then we would gather more information.”
The future
I always like to ask CEOs and top executives to look into the future, and, as usual, we got some interesting comments. The biggest changes we will see, according to Owen, is in augmented reality, which he sees as “the idea of being somewhere where you're not, or being able to engage with some person, some thing, or some area without moving.”
Scott-Croxford’s comment stemmed from the same subject of the digitalization of all of our lives.
“As the world is becoming more digital and technologically enabled,” she said, “we still think there is a very strong and compelling need for personal connection networks, and networks and spaces like this meeting to convene, learn and inspire. I think that will become stronger.”
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