The untapped potential of customer data

Customer data is essential for the success of modern enterprises. Business leaders across every industry understand this fundamental truth. Yet, the reality is clear—many organizations are missing the opportunity to unlock the immense value hidden within their customer data. I recently helped shape a research study from the Virtusa research center, which shows that achieving mastery over data, leveraging AI, and structuring a global data office closes the gap between customer centricity and profitability. The not-so-surprising punchline: only 14% of businesses effectively harness the power of their customer data.

For enterprises looking to propel their organization forward, the question isn’t whether they should use customer data to its fullest potential—it’s how fast they can make it happen. This article provides actionable takeaways for modernizing, managing, maximizing, and monetizing customer data to fuel growth, innovation, and exceptional customer experiences.

Why organizations need to become data-driven

Meeting customer needs as they arise is no longer enough to stay competitive. To thrive, businesses must become hyper-focused on what customers want today and actively anticipate their needs for tomorrow. Data-driven organizations don’t merely react; they predict, innovate, and turn insights into personalized customer experiences.

Failing to capitalize on available data is like leaving money on the table. According to Virtusa's research, organizations that excel at using customer data saw an 18% boost in revenue, compared to just 4% for companies with weak data practices. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Benefits of optimizing customer data

• Gain a competitive advantage by making faster, smarter decisions.
• Deliver tailored customer experiences through predictive personalization.
• Drive revenue growth with innovative, data-driven business strategies.
• Ensure long-term success by fostering data usage across teams.

But achieving this level of success requires a shift in how leaders approach, analyze, and act upon their data.

A roadmap to unlocking customer data’s full value

Transforming customer data into a strategic advantage starts with four fundamental pillars.

Modernize—build a strong data foundation

The first step is establishing the infrastructure needed for scalability. Upgrading outdated systems, migrating to the cloud, and deploying modern data architectures lay the groundwork for success.

Key actions

• Cloud migration—move to cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud to improve performance and scale operations seamlessly.
• Data governance—ensure data accuracy, cleanliness, and compliance with regulations like GDPR or CCPA with robust frameworks.
• Real-time access—build systems that provide insights on demand, enabling faster decision-making.

Example

Leading organizations create datasets as a product for ready consumption by various value streams, such as fraud detection, sanctions screening, chatbot operations, and location-based insights, to name a few. One of Virtusa’s large pharmaceutical clients automated their site audit by using real-time location data and NLP to understand and process necessary evidence for clearing clinical data audits.

Manage—establish governance and operational efficiency

Effective data governance isn’t an IT initiative—it’s a business imperative. Without proper systems, insights can become fragmented or unreliable, harming organizational decision-making.

Key actions

• Centralized governance with a dedicated data team—establish a global data office to standardize and share insights across your organization.
• Strengthen data security—instill customer trust by prioritizing the latest cybersecurity measures.
• Streamline operations—align IT and business goals for efficient management of data resources.

Example

Virtusa’s research highlights that companies with strong governance structures significantly outperform their peers. By enforcing consistency and structured workflows, these leaders drive collaboration and actionable insights across units. For a large telecommunications company in Europe, Virtusa enabled a state-of-the-art smart governance initiative. As part of this initiative, Virtusa addressed one of the longstanding challenges in governance: human fatigue. By automating policy setup and administration, Virtusa ensured adherence to policy guidelines and smoothly incorporated frequent policy changes. Additionally, policy audits were facilitated as part of the process, thereby meeting data security and regulatory requirements.  

Maximize—turn data into actionable insights

Having data isn’t enough. The true advantage lies in transforming data into meaningful, actionable insights that influence real-time business decisions.

Key actions

• Leverage AI and machine learning (ML)—analyze complex patterns to uncover trends and opportunities.
• Utilize advanced analytics—go beyond basic metrics to understand nuanced customer behaviors.
• Adopt predictive models—forecast customer needs to proactively deliver solutions.

Example

Virtusa is currently collaborating with a healthcare provider to improve its call center experience. This initiative focuses on agent training, reducing call duration, and improving customer satisfaction. A generative AI-based solution was proposed, which screens calls before routing them to a live agent. The system retrieves the necessary background information and presents it to the agent handling the call. Additionally, the incoming query is converted to text using a large language model (LLM), and a search is conducted in a master database to find the most likely answer. This response is displayed on the agent's screen, thereby improving the quality of the answer and equipping agents to handle a variety of query types effectively. Currently, we are managing nearly 2,000 group policies and scaling up to 16000 group policies, serving millions of policyholders. 

The value of actionable insights

AI-powered insights reduce operational costs by 29% and accelerate data transformation by 68%, giving businesses a sharp competitive edge.

Monetize—turn customer data into revenue

The most forward-thinking companies are using data to create entirely new revenue streams, products, and business models.

Key actions

• Develop data-driven products—package insights as "data products" to empower marketing and product development teams.
• Offer data-as-a-service (DaaS)—sell anonymized data to partners or create subscription-based analytics services.
• Upsell and cross-sell smartly—use customer behavior trends to refine recommendations and product bundles.

Example

Virtusa can build and train models using curated datasets that are cleansed, trustworthy, and equipped with necessary guardrails. This approach enhances cross-selling and upselling opportunities, improves customer experience, increases retention, scales operations, and ultimately boosts revenue through targeted campaigns. 

Building a customer-obsessed, data-driven organization

The leaders excelling in today’s business environment aren’t just using data—they are redefining the rules with it. Transforming your company into a data-driven enterprise requires a cultural overhaul, where every decision centers on intelligent insights. To succeed, it’s important to adopt a product manager mindset. Viewing data as a product ensures that your organization actively nurtures it, promotes its adoption, and maintains its long-term value. Additionally, this perspective allows for a typical product life cycle, including planning for retirement based on utility.

How to achieve a data-driven culture

• Promote data and AI literacy—empower leaders and teams to trust and act on data.
• Attract top talent—recruit experienced data scientists, engineers, and analysts to power innovation.
• Encourage collaboration—provide centralized tools and processes that ensure insights are shared and acted upon consistently.

Takeaway

Data only delivers value when acted upon. Businesses that consistently drive innovation and customer outcomes are unlocking the full potential of shared, actionable insights.

Your customer data is your greatest untapped asset. Are you ready to unlock its full power? Start by modernizing your infrastructure, centralizing governance, and fostering a customer-obsessed, data-driven culture.

For deeper insights and practical case studies, download Virtusa’s report, "Beyond Customer Obsession: Engineering Data Mastery for What Comes Next." Discover how your organization can build the foundation to achieve true data-driven transformation.

Read the full report now