How to procure the best customer data platform for your business
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The market has changed massively due to continuous digitalization and innovation. This has led to intense competition where businesses must adopt an omnichannel strategy to cater to complex customer journeys across both digital and physical touchpoints.
Challenge
CDPs have quickly emerged as one of the most prominent tools for businesses to deliver seamless, personalized, and holistic experiences to their customers across all relevant touchpoints.
Background
Remotion has extensive experience as a trusted partner, having guided several procurements and RFPs for CDPs, ensuring the best possible evaluation and selection. We have summarized some concrete steps and considerations to help your business choose and procure the best CDP for your requirements and needs.
The Value of a CDP
The insight that CDPs add value through digital capabilities like data management, profile unification, customer analytics, and personalization is now widely recognized. However, knowing how to procure and choose the right CDP for your business can feel less concrete and more abstract.
Establish a Clear Vision and Structure
The first step is to create a clear vision and detail exactly what your business wants to achieve—both in terms of use cases and capabilities—by implementing a CDP. To do this, review your current capabilities and identify what new ones are needed. Before buying a new system, always ask: “can we achieve this with the tech stack we have today?” If the answer is no, map out how a CDP's core features can fill that gap. In line with your vision, it is key to set up a structure with defined roles, responsibilities, processes, and activities.
Preparation and Launch
The next step is to research and screen vendors in the market. Once you have a shortlist, you can create and send out a Request for Proposal (RFP) aligned with your vision, goals, and capabilities. The selected vendors will then review the requirements and submit their proposals. Always ensure NDAs are signed by all participating vendors before starting the process.
Evaluation and Decision Making
After launching the RFP, focus on analyzing the responses and shortlisting vendors for demo sessions. When reviewing these demos, look at three main areas to ensure you choose the best CDP for your business:
Functional coverage: What the CDP can do regarding data management, analytics, scoring, campaign management, activation, orchestration, and reporting.
Non-functional coverage: What the vendor offers in terms of performance, training, support, and integration capabilities.
Technology: How their tech foundation matches your roadmap. For example, if you invest in an event-driven CDP, does your rest of the tech stack support it, or will it struggle because your other systems are batch-oriented?
Commercials and fit: Factors like the geographic location of customer support, resources, expertise, references, price, and cultural match.
Pricing is key, but don't negotiate to a point where the vendor doesn't see you as a valuable partner. Also, consider the pricing model. For instance, if you plan to enter a new market, how will that affect your costs?
By carefully matching these categories with your business objectives, making the right decision becomes much easier.
With a clear vision, proper preparation, and a strategic evaluation process, your company will be set up to procure the best CDP for your needs. As a leading data-driven communication consultancy in Scandinavia, we at Remotion know from experience that these steps will lead to a successful CDP procurement, enabling you to deliver unified, holistic experiences for your customers.
