Silicon Foundry’s core business has always been to help our Corporate Members discover, connect, and engage with emerging companies and technologies to unlock high-impact customer partnership, development and investment opportunities. To achieve this, we maintain strong affiliations with both leading corporates and top-tier emerging companies.
In our evolution of working with startups, we introduced an offering, Business Development as a Service (BDaaS), to a carefully selected group of startups that have a particularly strong alignment with our corporate network. For these partnerships, we harness the strength of our corporate network to actively contribute to their growth trajectory.
Here we’re shining the spotlight on our partnership with Quantum Metric, a unicorn helping large consumer-facing corporations with their digital customer experience. Quantum Metric gives businesses real-time insight into how customers are behaving across all digital connectivity points via a multi-stakeholder platform that highlights KPIs and metrics most relevant to each function. They already have an impressive customer list, especially within the financial services industry, travel and hospitality, CPG, and food and beverage sector.
Today, we’re excited to feature Clay Warren, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy for Quantum Metric. He recently shared his insights into how Quantum Metric’s innovative solutions are driving transformative digital customer experiences and enhancing business outcomes across various industries.
You’ve led an impressive career holding various positions in senior leadership with notable companies like Adobe, Razorfish, and Microsoft. What excited you most about Quantum Metric when you joined as the company’s Senior Director of Corporate Strategy?
I spent about five and a half years working within the Adobe Analytics division, which provides digital analytics to some of the world’s most renowned brands. During this time, it became clear that many of these brands had difficulty really understanding customer behavior across the multitude of digital experiences. Despite having access to extensive data that enabled them to track metrics like website and mobile app traffic, page visits, and user engagement, they grappled with deeper insights. They struggled to answer crucial questions such as why certain users didn’t convert, what obstacles hindered task completion, or why transactions were left incomplete.
When I was introduced to Quantum Metric, I was fascinated by their level of engagement with some of the top brands in the world. Leading retailers and financial services giants were among the many leveraging Quantum Metric to drive their digital operations. Quantum Metric offered unparalleled visibility into the reasons behind consumer behavior, shedding light on what triggered frustration, low CSAT scores, or calls to customer service. This was a revelation for me because many of my Adobe clients had voiced their frustrations in trying to understand these exact challenges.
Since the very beginning, QM’s mission has been to improve how organizations use their data to understand their customers and build customer-defined digital products faster. It’s a process that you call ‘Continuous Product Design’. Can you talk about this process and why it’s important in the greater context of the innovation ecosystem and future endeavors?
Many brands find themselves at a standstill in their digital journey, grappling with a shortage of digital talent and an array of digital tools at their disposal. What these brands truly need is a clear roadmap to navigate the intricate world of data utilization effectively. They must understand not only what data to harness but also how to pose the right questions to extract meaningful insights. Furthermore, they must learn to leverage this data across various teams, whether technical, product-focused, customer experience-oriented, or analytics-driven.
This is where Continuous Product Design (CPD) comes into play. CPD offers brands a structured framework for their digital analytics capabilities to evolve and mature over time, ensuring a perpetual cycle of enhancement in their digital experiences. It goes beyond the conventional approach of merely using digital analytics to boost metrics like checkout funnel conversion rates. Instead, it harnesses the rich data provided by QM to surface insights that transcend departmental boundaries and teams.
For instance, consider a scenario where an IT team wants to understand why APIs aren’t functioning correctly. In the CPD framework, it’s not enough to pinpoint the technical issue alone. If you’re the CTO, you need to assess the broader implications–how many customers are affected and what’s the financial toll on your brand? Now, shift to the viewpoint of the CMO. You’re allocating millions of dollars to drive traffic, but a significant portion of visitors isn’t converting. The big question is… why? CPD gives marketers, technical users, and product teams alike a framework to be able to understand how to use the data they’re collecting to make critical optimization decisions over time.
Consider an example like a major global airline. This airline isn’t just harnessing Quantum Metric for their customer-facing platforms, such as their website and mobile app; they’re taking it a step further by implementing it for their internal operations too. This means the airline’s internal staff rely on various internal applications that have Quantum Metric running. This strategic decision is an integral part of their maturity model because they recognize that the experience of their employees directly impacts the experience of their customers. In line with their maturity model, they’ve undertaken the challenge of discerning and addressing the friction and frustration encountered by their employees. They’re actively optimizing the internal product experiences to positively influence how their employees treat and serve the airline’s customers.
How does your platform use machine intelligence to automatically discover and prioritize customer experience issues? And what are the key differentiators?
While many analytics tools are in the business of data capture, Quantum Metric stands out by capturing data in real-time, setting a new standard for precision and efficiency without the need for extensive manual instrumentation.This real-time data baseline and anomaly detection capabilities are driven by machine learning techniques. Utilizing a method known as triple exponential smoothing, we scrutinize data for anomalies, ensuring accuracy and minimizing false positives or negatives. Is the anomaly a rage click, a moment of user frustration, or confusion exhibited through erratic website behavior? Our machine learning algorithms are adept at identifying and classifying these behaviors.
For example, suppose a user named Meghan encounters an anomaly while trying to check out on a retail website, possibly due to a payment processing glitch. We not only alert you to Meghan’s issue but we also assess how many others are experiencing a similar problem and quantify the financial impact on your brand—whether it’s a minor glitch affecting a handful of users or a major disruption resulting in significant revenue loss over a short period.
Innovation means different things to different companies. How does Quantum Metric define innovation?
There’s a quote, the author escapes me at the moment, but it hits home: “Anomaly is the catalyst of innovation.” When we encounter anomalous behaviors or data irregularities, we don’t take them lightly; instead, we view them as sparks of innovation. Our commitment to innovation extends beyond merely introducing new features or widgets into our tool. We are on a mission to empower our customers to be fanatically customer-centric.
For us, innovation revolves around addressing the most pressing and costly challenges that brands face today. Take, for example, the significant issue of escalating call center costs. It’s not enough for us to explain why customers call the call center; plenty of data already does that. Our innovation lies in reducing the volume of calls going into the call center. We don’t just identify the friction or frustration prompting someone to dial the call center; we proactively create real-time solutions that allow customers to resolve their issues through self-service on their website or mobile app. This not only enhances the customer experience but also alleviates the financial burden it places on the brand.
Some of the world’s largest and most respected brands rely on Quantum Metric’s cross-industry expertise to understand customer behavior, get faster insights, align internally, and save time. What are the industries and areas that you are the most interested in right now?
Quantum Metric has achieved remarkable success across various industries, with a significant footprint in key sectors. Specifically, we have established ourselves as a pivotal player in the travel and hospitality industry, collaborating closely with the world’s largest airlines, both domestically and internationally. In the realm of retail, we serve as a foundational pillar for some of the globe’s most prominent retailers, influencing how they manage and conduct their digital operations.
Our impact extends further into the financial services sector, where several leading banking institutions in North America rely on Quantum Metric. Notably, our solutions are deployed not only within their customer-facing websites but also across multiple lines of business. Beyond these primary sectors, we’ve had tremendous success in healthcare, where we’ve played a critical role in enhancing the patient experience, and the telecommunications industry, in which we collaborate closely with some of the world’s largest telcos.
On a similar note, you recently announced a series of new customer wins in the EMEA region. What is driving growth in this region and what other markets or regions are you excited about?
The EMEA region often doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves in terms of digital maturity, whether we’re talking about Western Europe or the United Kingdom. However, our value proposition at Quantum Metric is resonating in this region. European brands face unique challenges, with even greater resource constraints than their global counterparts, especially when it comes to digital talent and analysts. What they need are not more tools but tools that expedite their data analysis and insight generation processes.
Outside of the EMEA region, we’ve set our sights on the Asia Pacific (APAC) market. The digital maturity in countries like Australia, Singapore, and throughout Asia is astonishing, although it often flies under the radar. APAC represents an emerging market for us where we’re starting to explore partnerships with some of the largest financial institutions in the region.
What is one key piece of advice you’d like to give peer C-suites when building innovation strategies to create long-term value?
One crucial piece of advice to consider, especially in the current economic environment, revolves around making thoughtful choices when it comes to technology vendors. The landscape is filled with a multitude of technologies and tools, each promising better customer experiences and enhanced efficiencies. The often-overlooked aspect of technology adoption is the partnership dimension. Every brand and technology company will tout grand promises, but the real question is, how do you identify a partner that truly aligns with your business goals and needs? You want a partner who invests time in understanding your unique requirements, the outcomes you prioritize, and the KPIs that matter most to you. Are they willing to work hand-in-hand with you to drive the outcomes you value most? Have they demonstrated this commitment with other brands, particularly those of similar size, shape, or industry?
When we collaborate with any brand, our focus extends beyond technology—we invest in comprehending your business, your unique challenges, and your roadmap to success. This level of commitment with brands of similar stature and industries sets us apart in the technology landscape.
