How good is your information equation?
As part of my ongoing contribution to the Vi@IEBusiness section in Spain’s leading daily El País, this week I looked at information equation, the development of a strategy to create an information management model for a company in the context of its relationships with clients, prospects, etc.
This falls into two main components: explicit and implicit, i.e. what we explicitly ask clients (and what emerges from our transactions with them) and what we implicitly learn from them (what we deduce through use patterns and voluntary sharing, social networks, sentiment analysis, etc.), to confirm a clear and accepted value proposition.
So why would our clients be prepared to provide this information? For you to manage it transparently, clearly, and responsibly with the goal of creating a value proposition that is useful to both parties: business and user. For the business, information management should help create a sustainable proposal, which should lead to a positive bias, to establishing a preference for your product over that of the competition. For the user, the same information management should provide him or her with other proposals that are valued, such as products and services, conveniences, incentives, price advantages, etc.
What is the key aspect of informational equation? It should be managed in black and white, leaving nothing to the imagination, and completely transparently. The customer must know at all times what information we have about him or her, how we are using it, and what secondary effects he or she will experience as a result; what’s more, his or her ARCO rights: access, rectification, cancellation, and objection, which have to be clearly explained.
In short, common sense, adapted to an environment that many companies and directors have been “finding” as technology has developed, but that in many cases has not be managed as such, and that when correctly interpreted can become a sustainable competitive advantage.
Here’s the video (3 minutes, subtitled in Spanish)
(En español. aquí)
