Today, salesforce.com announced their newest Cloud during the Dreamforce product keynote: Analytics Cloud. This announcement comes at an opportune time, as enterprises are increasing focus on actionable data to accelerate business outcomes. I caught up with Adam Bataran, Sr. Director of Analytics at Bluewolf, to get his perspective on the importance of analytics in delivering exceptional customer moments, and what Analytics Cloud means for the CRM industry in 2015 and beyond.

BG: Adam, why are analytics so important for businesses?

AB: Customers expect personalized experiences, no matter the channel. Leading companies have realized that delivering a personalized experience requires a holistic view of customers, and all of the data your customers leave when they interact with your brand digitally. They’re leveraging the power of analytics to deliver insights to employees in a way that optimizes customer moments and to accelerate business outcomes.

BG: How can businesses get started with analytics?

AB: The ultimate goal of analytics and business intelligence is to make data meaningful. Ideally, analytics tools provide the right insight to the right employees at the right time. They must be easy to access and use and offer employees the ability to take meaningful action. This way, organizations can be proactive in optimizing customer moments. Analytics enables companies to really get to know their customers and to make all interactions relevant, engaging, and personal.

BG: How does Salesforce Analytics Cloud align with the goal of optimizing customer moments and driving business outcomes?

AB: A key feature of Analytics Cloud is its data discovery, which allows employees to reach into various data sets to gain instant actionable insight. With this functionality, employees can bring in all types of data — from other Salesforce Clouds or external data systems — to gain faster access to meaningful data. Analytics Cloud is also the only analytics platform built with a mobile-first approach to provide users on-the-go access, across devices. The Salesforce Analytics Cloud also features modern data visualization — so it provides the same look & feel that users are accustomed to with other Salesforce products, as well as seamless integration.

BG: What does the Analytics Cloud mean for the CRM industry in 2015 and beyond?

AB: Predictive analytics and data intelligence are the types of things Salesforce customers are looking for to better engage their customers to drive business results. We see this new Cloud as a new innovation of salesforce.com as a preeminent customer engagement platform. What’s unprecedented about Analytics Cloud is its raw capacity and robust processing power: it enables of billions of transactions — an enormous scale previously unavailable with Salesforce natively. We’ve been waiting to see Salesforce enter the BI market — and and typical fashion they are going to make a tidal wave of disruption.

BG: What are the keys to success for businesses looking to implement Analytics Cloud?

AB: The purpose of insight is to empower better actions. As such, success with Analytics is contingent upon capturing the right data, transforming it into insight, and then diffusing that across your organization in a manner that aligns to business outcome objectives. Bluewolf has an actionable insights framework that helps organizations make sense of all this. By starting with key business outcomes and strategies, Bluewolf’s actionable insights framework helps organizations identify and then mature their ability to deliver the right insight within the right context. Our clients, like Iron Mountain, are ahead of the curve and have already implemented predictive analytics techniques into their processes to get closer to their customers. Analytics Cloud is also going to consume tons of data — Bluewolf has recently partnered with Informatica Corp to create a powerful data backbone required for insight transformation and delivery. 

We are focused on driving customer engagement for customers through measurable business outcomes, and Salesforce Analytics Cloud provides another way for us to work with clients to unleash their data and optimize customer moments — whether it be marketing, service, or sales. 

Bluewolf’s State of Salesforce report highlights that 71% of Salesforce customers will increase their investments in data in the coming year, download the report to learn more.

Want to talk analytics with Adam? Tweet @AdamBataran.