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Report shows that achieving mastery over data, leveraging AI, and structuring a global data office closes the gap between customer centricity and profitability

SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass., February 26, 2025 – Virtusa Corporation, a global leader in digital business strategy, digital engineering, and IT services, today announced a new study that highlights the critical role of customer data management in driving business growth. The findings show that despite accumulating substantial and increasing volumes of customer data, only 14 percent of U.S. companies across five industries report effective use of that data in marketing, sales, service, and product development. Importantly, these 14 percent have mastered their data to the extent that they are driving company performance, achieving 4x higher revenue growth over the past four years compared to companies with lower levels of data mastery.

The research found that it pays to be highly customer-centric and data-obsessed. Key findings include:

• Companies that leverage customer data effectively achieve significantly higher revenue growth. "Customer-obsessed" firms saw a 15% revenue increase, while an even higher "customer-clairvoyant" category of firms grew by 18% since 2020. In contrast, companies with poor data practices only grew by 4%.
  
  
• Most businesses struggle to turn data into actionable insights. For example, while 79% of companies effectively collect sales data, only 54% use external customer feedback (e.g., social media) to enhance marketing, sales, and service strategies.
  
  
• AI-driven insights are a game-changer. Companies that integrate generative AI for data processing have reduced costs by 29% and accelerated data transformation by 68%, enabling faster, more personalized customer interactions.
  
  
• A strong global data office is a revenue multiplier. Businesses with centralized data governance frameworks outperform competitors by ensuring structured data collection, privacy adherence, and real-time cross-functional data sharing.
  
  
• The top-performing firms follow a structured four-step approach:
  • Build a strong data foundation
  • Leverage AI for predictive insights
  • Implement metadata-driven analytics for deeper customer understanding
  • Establish a global data office

The study, titled “Beyond customer obsession: Engineering data mastery for what comes next” surveyed more than 300 U.S. companies across five major industries, including banking and financial services, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, and telecommunications. The study focused on what the firm calls the “data foundation” every company has: the digital information collected on customers, and how they use AI and GenAI to extract insights on customer behavior and turn that into competitive advantage with AI-powered customer experiences. The findings highlight the stark differences between companies that merely respond to customer needs and those that proactively leverage customer data to out-market, out-sell, out-service, and out-innovate their competition, as well as the importance of establishing a global data office.

The Importance of the Global Data Office

Virtusa collaborates with clients to help them establish and operate a global data office, yielding significant outcomes. The most effective global data offices perceive customer insights as “products” to be delivered to marketing, sales, service, and product development leaders. As noted in the study, by applying the principles of “product management”—traditionally used for marketable products—internally within their organizations, companies can turn their data into competitive advantage. These data products can be a catalyst for multiple company functions, from helping marketers create more impactful campaigns, assisting sales executives in determining optimal selling strategies, to helping service managers prevent customer attrition, and product development managers in generating new product offerings. 

“The global data office has become a powerful force for companies that lead the market,” said Euan Davis, head of the Virtusa Research Center and VP of growth markets. “It sits squarely between two groups: the IT organization, which collects digital data, and the business functions that use that data. It must work with the IT organization to ensure it collects the right types and quantities of data, and that it is clean and fresh. On the other hand, the global data office needs to turn that data into powerful insights on customers that marketing, sales, service and product development managers can use.”

Survey Details from the Virtusa Research Center

Virtusa’s thought leadership institute, the Virtusa Research Center, conducted this survey of 300 leading U.S. companies with an average revenue of $29 billion on their methods of collecting, managing, and utilizing five types of customer data: website and mobile app usage, sales transactions, service interactions, product usage, and customer comments from social media, product review sites, and other third-party sites. Virtusa then classified these companies based on their customer-centricity, specifically their effectiveness in leveraging customer data to tailor marketing and sales campaigns, provide better service, enhance existing products, and develop new ones. 

Based on the findings, Virtusa has additional research underway on how companies in the same five industries can leverage their data foundation to dramatically improve marketing, sales, service and product development. The findings will seek to show how refining customer data and processes can revolutionize customer data lifecycle management in each industry.

To read “Beyond customer obsession: Engineering data mastery for what comes next,” download it here.