Organize | Recommend | Measure & Improve

The Self-Learning
Enterprise:
Staying Competitive
in the Digital Era
In Brief
Businesses have seen constant technological evolution in the last
couple of decades, moving from process-driven on-premises applications
(E.g. ERP, CRM), to Cloud and SaaS efficiency, and in recent times
incorporating big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Even though vast amounts of data can now be collected cost effectively,
real business value lies in continuously organizing data across siloed
sources and channels, to operate more efficiently and improve results.
But IT and business teams, and their use of technologies, are also siloed.
While IT focuses on initiatives such as standalone Master Data Management
(MDM), big data lakes, AI and ML projects, business teams invest in their
own SaaS applications and tools for self-service speed and agility.

In the face of new revenue models, regulations, mergers & acquisitions,

businesses still have to deliver to high customer expectations.
Tech titans like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google lead the way
on the strength of their use of data and insights. They learn from their
data, actions and results to measure and improve. High churn of old
business models indicates that a major shift towards not just being more
data-driven, but evolving to a Self-Learning Enterprise is essential for survival.

Self-Learning Enterprises recognize that data needs to be at the heart of

every decision, and more data requires ongoing organization into a reliable
data foundation. Use of a Self-Learning Data Platform with built-in advanced
analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence delivers a unified
data set with unlimited personalized views for all business teams. A
Self-Learning Enterprise continuously learns about customers, products, and
their relationships to deliver role and goal-based recommended actions to meet
individual, team, and company objectives.

In the digital era data is not a company's biggest asset if it's not reliable or used correctly.
Continuous data organization combined with self-learning is the key to success.
This paper provides a framework to evolve into a Self-Learning Enterprise.

Winners put data at the heart of every decision.

Yesterday, winners were product innovators. Today, winners are data innovators.

Reltio 2
The Path to Digital Transformation
The Enterprise technology landscape has been changing dramatically almost every decade. In the 1990s, with the mass adoption of on-
premises Enterprise Applications such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SCM (Supply
Chain Management), the focus was on standardizing around well-defined business processes.

In the 2000s, with the advent of the Cloud, these applications started getting replaced with SaaS (Software as a Service) applications, which
significantly reduced hardware and software costs. In the past decade, there has been an explosion in volume, variety, and velocity of data.
With the advent of social media, smartphones, 4G and 5G networks, enterprises have been able to capture more data than ever before.

Realizing the potential and wanting to be more data-driven, To enable this companies are collecting high volumes of data

enterprises started adopting new technologies to capture all the from more sources than ever: internal, social, and 3rd-party.

data in data warehouses, and later in data lakes. They attempted to Realizing true business benefits from the overwhelming data

make sense of all this data using various business intelligence and deluge requires a new approach. And with all players eying a

visualization technologies. While they can capture data, analyze it bigger market share, data is becoming their biggest strategic

and convert it into visual charts, they are still struggling with a very asset. However, only companies that can continuously

basic problem: How to use insights in day-to-day operational organize, act on, and learn from data will have a significant

execution. In that regard, there is true business value in data that competitive advantage.

has yet to be fully unlocked. Technologies such as Cloud

Computing, MDM, NoSQL, AI and ML can help businesses stay
“The shift from mass campaigns
competitive. The problem is that stitching these technologies to hyper-personalized offers brings
together hasn't gotten any easier or faster. tremendous opportunities as well as
challenges.”
Today consumers are experiencing a wave of everyday delight.
Businesses know they must execute on their digital transformation
A loyal retail customer gets a surprise discount coupon in the
strategies. Customer expectations are constantly changing, often
mailbox, an occasional news website visitor receives a promotional
driven by new channels, continuous connectivity, and information
subscription offer, or a happy movie streaming subscriber gets
sharing. Smart customers watch trends in one industry and expect
perfect viewing recommendations. There seems to be no end to
the same service levels from the other. For example, the Healthcare
personalized messages and offers. All resulting from the self-
industry is changing how they manage patients based on the
learning understanding of data uncovered related to customer
service consumers get from their bank or retail store.
actions, purchases, and real-time activities.

With so many technologies and tools, and data in a disorganized

The shift from mass campaigns to hyper-personalization brings
state, how can a business even get started along the path towards
tremendous opportunities as well as challenges. Such business
digital transformation?
models require a very deep understanding of customer
preferences and behaviors. Reltio 3
Self-Learners vs.
Churners
Companies like Uber and Airbnb introduced new revenue models
and challenged the status quo in the transportation and hospitality
industry. Their business requires accurate response based on real-
time data available across multiple sources. Netflix offers their
services on a number of devices, and keeps collating data from all
of them to understand usage patterns. Companies are compelled to
continuously gather data in order to make real-time
recommendations, and to learn whether those recommendations
were a good fit.
New regulations and compliance requirements demand a fresh
look at the processes and operations, while mergers & acquisitions
bring their own set of data challenges. Organized data is at the
center of all such transformation initiatives. To stay competitive
amid the constant changes, businesses must harness data and
derive effective insights. 52% of S&P 500 companies have
disappeared in the last 15 years which relied on the traditional
revenue streams1, while 50% of S&P companies are expected to be
replaced in the next 10 years with newer revenue models2.
This high churn illustrates the power of data and insight-driven
business. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook – companies
leading the Fortune 500 today, are powered by the strength of
their use of data for insights.
BUSINESSES MUST TRANSFORM
Changing Customer Expectations
New Revenue Models displacing traditional
revenue streams
New Regulations and Compliance requirements
Complex Mergers & Acquisitions
Changing Political Landscape
From Data-Driven to
Self-Learning
Forrester Research reports that insights-driven companies are 39%
more likely to report year-over-year revenue growth of 15% or
more3. These companies deliver results through collaborative
access to insights as their key strength.
Today’s most successful companies are all digital, having mastered
the art of self-learning from the data they collect. E-commerce
giant Amazon continuously monitors customer browsing patterns,
product choices, price range, purchases, and other online activities
to derive insights and recommend appropriate products. Facebook
targets content to the right audience using insights derived from
groups, posts, and viewing patterns, all in real-time.
“Organized Data is at the center of
transformation initiatives. To stay
competitive amid constant changes,
businesses must harness data to
derive effective insights.”
35% of what consumers purchase on Amazon or 75% of what
they watch on Netflix comes from the recommendations based
on algorithms that analyze transaction data and trends4. The
recommended actions derived from the wealth of data collected
are used to improve business operations efficiency, and enhance
customer experience. Taking cues from such digital success many
healthcare organizations are looking to leverage the data they have
to deliver personalized care, improve treatment adherence for
patients, and eliminate readmissions.
From the early days of transaction-based and process-driven focus
business have now arrived in a digital era, where success depends
on generating, organizing and executing on data, with the
aspirations of true self-learning powered by Artificial Intelligence
and Machine Learning.
Reltio 4
 JOURNEY TO SELF-LEARNING Self-Learning enterprises continuously organize all data about
customers, products, suppliers, compliance and regulations, as
well as business transactions, into a reliable and secure data
MEASURE & IMPROVE
foundation. Once data is organized, enterprises provision the
consistent
and clean data to all operational and analytical systems and
applications, to improve business outcomes across all aspects of
RECOMMEND
their business, such as to:
• Improve operational • Improve management of
efficiency sales accounts

• Enhance customer • Aggregate supplier

ORGANIZE experience information

• Launch more personalized • Become compliant with

campaigns regulations such as General
Data Protection Regulation
• Reduce customer acquisition (GDPR) and KYC
and retention cost
• Reduce IT costs while
While the notion of the self-learning enterprise is still evolving, the
• Accelerate product launches making data easier to
market for AI and ML and its potential is undeniably vast. Forrester
customize, view, and apply
Research predicts that “truly insights-driven businesses will steal
Use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning promises,
$1.2 trillion per annum from their less-informed peers by 2020.” 5
reliable data, relevant insights and intelligent recommendations to
help make better business decisions, personalization, and through
a self-learning cycle, continuous improvement.

AXIOMS OF SELF-LEARNING

Data is at the heart of More data requires Unified data set still Analytics are built Continuously learn
every decision better organization needs unlimited into operational about customers,
personalized views business processes products and their
relationships

Reltio 5
Begin with Recommend Actions
Continuous Data Companies have multiple teams, each with their own applications

Organization and tools they use to meet their individual goals. While they have
common business objectives, teams want relevant insights that
help them achieve own goals and targets. For example a marketing
If they are to stay competitive, enterprises are compelled to work on
team may be focused on what offer should be made to a segment
data more systematically, much beyond simply managing it with
of customers. Sales operations may need to align channels, be
traditional tools. Besides defensive data strategies to meet
prepared for higher seasonal demands, and realize better efficiency
regulatory compliance, they need to harness data in offensive
be reducing inventory costs. Traditional analytics tools provide
strategies to improve customer experience, personalization, and
either high-level macro insights that need further mapping to
operating efficiency.
operational systems to ensure the best course of action is taken.
The Reltio Self-Learning Data Platform provides a unified pool of
Data can come from anywhere at anytime, such as internal, external,
data, and an environment for recommending the next best actions
social, and third-party sources. It streams through multiple channels
specific to both teams and individuals. For an individual sales rep, it
including Point of Sales (POS), legacy CRM systems, supply chain,
may be a recommendation to get a referral to a prospect through a
online activities, social media, and more. Data also comes in all
family member. For marketing, it may be a suggestion to segment
formats with unspecified and unlimited attributes. The common
profiles based on scores to drive a new campaign.
refrain is that data first needs to be organized and connected with
the rest of the enterprise, so that it can form a reliable foundation
for use in critical business initiatives.
Improving Enterprise IQ
Through scoring and ranking attributes, customer profile
A foundation of Master Data Management (MDM) capabilities,
traits such as customer business value, churn propensity,
combined with blending of transactions and interactions served up
or cart abandonment probability are discovered and used
to Machine Learning algorithms allow a Self-Learning Data Platform,
for recommendations. As Amazon boosts its sales through
such as Reltio, to organize inconsistent, incomplete, siloed data into
recommended products and Netflix makes intelligent program
clean, resolved, and consolidated profiles.
suggestions based on viewer preferences using algorithms, which

Unorganized data has hidden relationships that are a goldmine that analyze transaction data and trends, many other enterprises

can be uncovered across people, places, products, and including top Pharma companies are looking to use intelligent

organizations. The Reltio Self-Learning Graph, for example, uses a recommendations to guide medical reps about the best frequency,

trusted data foundation to surface relationships between account time, and channel to contact a physician to provide information

hierarchies, households, influencers, customer preferences, and about a new drug.

more.
Reltio IQ, a core module of the Reltio Self-Learning Data Platform,
generates IQ scores, and recommended actions for any business
use case and role. Business teams can tap into the powerful
Reltio Self-Learning Graph consumer-like recommendations that Amazon and Netflix use, while
Discovers new relationships
IT can use Reltio IQ scores to segment and focus on improving data
Improves data matching quality for profiles that generate the most business value.

Highlights influencers
Reltio IQ provides a real-time environment for data scientists and
Recommends products business analysts to run algorithms on continuously organized,

Suggests data quality reliable data, and to ultimately deliver those IQ scores and
improvements recommendations directly to the right teams based on their
personal goals, in the flow of their day-to-day operational processes.

Reltio 6
STEPS TO
SELF-LEARNING Measure
MATURITY & Improve
• Scores & Ranks
Recommend
Actions • Role and Goal-based
recommendations
• All sources /
formats
Continuous Data
Organization • Identified &
consolidated
profiles
Measure & Improve
Typical business intelligence tools are used to garner insights to
aid in decision making processes. Self-Learning Enterprises go
beyond insight to directly correlate and measure recommended
actions with actual outcomes through a closed-loop cycle to keep
improving. This is not only critical for Machine Learning, to refine
recommendations, but to quantify actual ROI through captured
metrics.
Bridging the gap between analytics and operational execution,
results are continuously measured and compared with projections,
to find areas of improvement. Reltio IQ can provide anonymous
industry IQ scores that companies can use as benchmarks to see
how they are faring compared to their peers.
Self-Learning Enterprises continuously learn about customers,
products, and their relationships. As their knowledge about
customer behaviors and needs improve, they can offer increasingly
relevant products and services. Engagement becomes more
personalized and metrication, and analysis of data that improves
recommendations through this self-learning cycle is automated.
Self-Learning in Action
Healthcare organizations continuously gather patient data from
routine checkups, prescriptions, insurance providers, health plans,
professional bodies, and other relevant sources. A Self-Learning
approach can bring all this information across all relationships
together, and help recommend more proactive wellness programs,
going beyond establishing disease patterns or treatment lines.
• Closed-loop correlation • Benchmarked progress &
of recommendations, industry comparison
actions & results
• Quantifiable ROI • Improved ML Algorithms
• Profile specific & list
segment-able
• Analytics & ML built
into business
processes
• Unlimited
attributes
• Uncovered
relationships
For critical care of at-risk patients, refinement of treatment plans
by monitoring adherence and results can highly improve survival
chances. Continuous closed-loop measurements and improvements
guarantee better data quality and better records to ensure
regulatory compliance, and ultimately better patient outcomes.
In the world of fierce competition, high churn, and fickle customers,
retail businesses are struggling to deliver on customer experiences
to gain customer loyalty. Customers are vocal about their
expectations, choices, desires, and experiences through various
channels including social media. With all players eying a bigger
market share with access to the same customer data, staying
competitive requires a new approach. Self-Learning through
organized data, within a closed-loop delivers recommendations to
retailers to make better and timely offers to their customers,
through the best channels.
Companies can begin the journey towards a Self-Learning
Enterprise with or without Machine Learning and Artificial
Intelligence. Step 1 involves the organization of data of all types and
sources at scale to form a trusted data foundation. Step 2 involves
analytics for operational execution—simple business rules or
Machine Learning algorithms tuned by data scientists—to deliver
recommended actions. At full maturity, step 3, a Self-Learning
Enterprise will be able to measure the outcomes of those actions
and use data in a continuous cycle of improvement. The Reltio Self-
Learning Data Platform is designed to provide the evolutionary path
businesses need to realize their potential, even as they take
advantage of shifting trends and unexpected market opportunities.
Reltio 7
About Reltio
The Reltio Self-Learning Data PlatformTM developed natively in the cloud, organizes enterprise data for continuous self-learning. With Reltio,
businesses can now manage data like leading digital companies, leveraging continuous data organization and recommended actions to
ultimately measure and improve their operations. Reltio organizes data from all sources and formats, creating a unified data set with unlimited
personalized views for users across sales, marketing, and compliance. With machine learning, Reltio then recommends actions, and finally
measures and correlates business impact. This self-learning cycle empowers companies to put data at the heart of every decision, build
analytics into operational business processes and continuously learn about customers, products and their relationships. Leading Global 2000
and companies of all sizes and industries rely on Reltio to become Self-Learning Enterprises. Learn more at www.reltio.com.

Learn More:
A brief video on how IT and business can work together to be right faster can be seen here.
A brief video showing how a marketing rep and data scientist can both be smarter together can be seen here.
A brief video showing how a compliance and data stewards can solve GDPR and other challenges can be seen here.
Start your self-learning journey today by requesting a demo at reltio.com/contact-us

Organize | Recommend | Measure & Improve

References: 1. Why Half of the S&P 500 Companies Will Be Replaced in the Next Decade (https://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/innosight-sp-500-new-companies.html). 2. I Dissected the
S&P 500, and This is What I Found (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-dissected-the-sp-500-and-this-is-what-i-found-2016-05-09). 3. The Customer-Obsessed Finance Leader In
The Age Of Data (http://www.dnb.com/content/dam/english/economic-and-industry-insight/the-customer-obsessed-finance-leader-in-the-age-of-data.pdf). 4. How retailers can keep up
with consumers. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-retailers-can-keep-up-with-consumers). 5. Predictions 2017: Artificial Intelligence Will Drive The Insights
Revolution (https://go.forrester.com/wp-content/uploads/Forrester_Predictions_2017_-Artificial_Intelligence_Will_Drive_The_Insights_Revolution.pdf)