Shantanu Narayen (Adobe); Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Bill McDermott (SAP)
Adobe, Microsoft and SAP are forming a data alliance that will make it easier for clients running their applications to get a better overview of the customer.
The tech giants announced the Open Data Initiative at Ignite 2018, saying it would help break down information silos that make it hard for businesses to make the most of their customer base.
“The core focus of the Open Data Initiative is to eliminate data silos and enable a single view of the customer, helping companies to better govern their data and support privacy and security initiatives," the three said in a joint statement.
The initiative will enhance interoperability and data exchange between their platforms - Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Experience Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and SAP C/4HANA and S/4HANA - through a common model, the vendors said.
It comes as a new European data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), puts a premium on access to customer data given by consent, structurally favouring direct marketing channels over the advertising ecosystem that relies heavily on tracking users online.
“Adobe, Microsoft and SAP are partnering to reimagine the customer experience management category,” said Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe.
“Together we will give enterprises the ability to harness and action massive volumes of customer data to deliver personalised, real-time customer experiences at scale.”
To deliver on the Initiative, the vendors are enhancing interoperability and data exchange between applications and platforms, spanning Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Experience Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP C/4HANA and S/4HANA.
Specifically, the data model will provide for the use of a common data lake service on Microsoft Azure, in a bid to allow customers choice of development tools and applications to build and deploy services.
“Together with Adobe and SAP we are taking a first, critical step to helping companies achieve a level of customer and business understanding that has never before been possible,” added Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
“Organisations everywhere have a massive opportunity to build AI-powered digital feedback loops for predictive power, automated workflows and, ultimately, improved business outcomes.”
In short, the agreement aims to “eliminate data silos”, while at the same time enabling a “single view of the customer”.
“Microsoft, Adobe and SAP understand the customer experience is no longer a sales management conversation,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. “CEOs are breaking down the silos of the status quo so they can get all people inside their companies focused on serving people outside their companies.
“With the Open Data Initiative, we will help businesses run with a true single view of the customer.”
(Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Maria Sheahan - Reuters)
