How unified data improves firm profitability and trust

Bad data doesn’t just slow you down... it silently drains revenue and erodes trust across your organization. Every CRM, ERP, and marketing system holds the potential to accelerate growth… or to mislead. The difference comes down to whether the data inside is complete, current, and connected. Too often, it isn’t. Inaccurate fields, duplicates, and siloed records create false signals that drive poor decisions. The reality is this: a business is only as strong as the data that powers its decisions. Without unified and trustworthy information, analytics become noise, segmentation falters, and customer engagement misses the mark. The solution is not simply buying more tools—it’s building a disciplined foundation around data. That means: Standards: Defining required fields, formats, and naming conventions. Stewardship: Assigning clear ownership and accountability for quality. Integration: Connecting data across systems to remove silos. Unification: Creating a single version of truth that everyone can trust. Leaders who treat data as a strategic asset, rather than an afterthought, unlock sharper decisions, stronger customer experiences, and measurable ROI. Those who don’t are making choices on borrowed time. The question isn’t if you’ll prioritize data quality and unification. The question is when. #DATA #CRM #ERP #UNIFICATION #GTM #SALES #MARKETING

Data silos aren’t just a tech problem - they’re an operational bottleneck that slows decision - making, erodes trust, and wastes millions in duplicated efforts. But we’ve seen companies like Autodesk, Nasdaq, Porto, and North break free by shifting how they approach ownership, governance, and discovery. Here’s the 6-part framework that consistently works: 1️⃣ Empower domains with a Data Center of Excellence. Teams take ownership of their data, while a central group ensures governance and shared tooling. 2️⃣ Establish a clear governance structure. Data isn’t just dumped into a warehouse—it’s owned, documented, and accessible with clear accountability. 3️⃣ Build trust through standards. Consistent naming, documentation, and validation ensure teams don’t waste time second-guessing their reports. 4️⃣ Create a unified discovery layer. A single “Google for your data” makes it easy for teams to find, understand, and use the right datasets instantly. 5️⃣ Implement automated governance. Policies aren’t just slides in a deck—they’re enforced through automation, scaling governance without manual overhead. 6️⃣ Connect tools and processes. When governance, discovery, and workflows are seamlessly integrated, data flows instead of getting stuck in silos. We’ve seen this transform data cultures - reducing wasted effort, increasing trust, and unlocking real business value. So if your team is still struggling to find and trust data, what’s stopping you from fixing it?

You’re not losing customers to better products. You’re losing them to better experiences. Customer experience collapses when brands run on fragmented data. The result can be immensely negative, whether it’s overcommunication, undercommunication, and tone-deaf outreach that misses the moments where personalisation matters most. 76% of buyers expect personalised attention. They don’t want more noise, they want relevance. And they’re willing to meet you halfway. 83% of customers will share their data if it leads to a more personalised experience - data gold for retention first growth. Even better, 80% are more likely to purchase from brands that deliver on that promise. Yet most teams still chase acquisition while the compounding power of retention goes overlooked. And when growth leans to heavily on new customers, the math decays. Shopify data shows repeat buyers are ~28% of customers but drive ~41–48% of revenue. Among top decile brands, repeat rates top 40%. A modest 5% lift in retention can expand profit by 25–95%. So if you want to start performing like the top deciles, every touchpoint must adapt in real time, guided by unified data, not guesswork. It’s how you avoid overwhelming customers with a half-dozen impersonal, disconnected emails cluttering their inbox on the same day. It’s how you catch churn early and deliver the right loyalty nudge at the right time. Retention-first growth doesn’t just protect revenue. It compounds it. How do you find access to unified data? Are your handoffs seamless, or are customers slipping through the cracks?

For years, marketers have been forced to analyze performance in silos—evaluating Facebook in Ads Manager, Google in GA, TV through post-campaign lift reports. Each platform tells a different story, leaving teams to stitch together a fragmented view of performance. The problem? Siloed measurement doesn’t reflect how consumers actually move through the funnel. A purchase isn’t usually the result of a single channel—it’s the product of multiple touchpoints working together. Relying on platform-specific attribution ignores this complexity, leading to misallocated budgets and missed opportunities. This is where unified measurement comes in. By combining methodologies like Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), and incrementality testing, marketers can move beyond siloed analysis and see the full picture. A unified approach ensures: -More accurate decision-making—by accounting for both granular, user-level data and broader, market-level trends. -Better budget allocation—understanding the true impact of each channel instead of over-relying on the last-click or individual platform metrics. -More trust in marketing data—giving finance and leadership a clear, consistent framework for investment decisions. The days of optimizing channels in isolation are over. Marketers who embrace unified measurement gain the clarity and confidence needed to drive real business outcomes. How is your team thinking about breaking down silos in measurement?

I have seen this unwanted scenario play out in so many retail brands before we started working with them. Their marketing, finance, and business teams use their own metrics. The result? • Misalignment • Wasted resources • Missed opportunities --------------------------------- Here’s why shared metrics and insights are crucial for driving real growth: → The problem: When everyone speaks a different data language, it’s impossible to align on strategy. For example: We worked with a large D2C brand where: • The marketing team optimized for ROAS • The finance team focused on margins • Business leadership aimed for higher foot traffic → The result? - Campaigns that looked great on paper failed to contribute to long-term goals. - Misalignment and inefficiency across the board. → The solution: Use a unified measurement, accounting, and decisioning framework. This approach helps teams: • Align on shared metrics like incremental revenue and customer lifetime value • Layer incrementality insights on top of business reporting to reveal the actual numbers The impact? The D2C brand achieved a 20% boost in profitability by year’s end. Bottom line: Shared insights and goals help in: • Better decisions • Faster execution • Fewer turf wars over budget allocation --------------------------------- How are you aligning your teams for maximum impact? Let’s discuss.