Will consumers share their data without a share in its value?

Trust would be the ticket to play in this world. Consumers would need to trust companies to use their data responsibly; the consequences for any company that breached that trust would be immediate and devastating.

Our “Tailored Life” world would create some interesting challenges and opportunities for consumer-facing companies. Some of its key features are already here in the world we know today. Others would represent quite a shift. It’s a world where people only actively choose a small selection of products and services. Bespoke products and services become commonplace. Luxury brands depend on restricted production, ephemeral products and their relationships with aspirational influencers.

Consumers are judged by the value of their personal data and the influence they can wield.

Social media is playing an increasingly important role in shaping consumer attitudes. Brands have been quick to embrace the idea of paying influential users to endorse their products and services. The metrics around how to value that influence and what to pay for it are still rather crude.

In LA one of our teams modeled a future world in which new technologies enabled everyone — not just celebrities or people with tens of thousands of followers — to maximize and monetize their data capital.

In our “Data Influence” world, people could earn rewards from companies and brands based on the value of their personal data and the influence they wield. They could increase the financial value of their data capital by making their data available in new ways, such as opting to engage with advertising or sponsored media. And they could then spend or trade the credits they earned as a form of virtual currency.

In this world, your power to influence others can be more relevant to a brand than your disposable income.

Consumers would use their data capital and their “power to influence” to reshape and optimize their lives — not just their net financial worth. Their personal AI platform of choice would curate branded media content for them to engage with and experience. This would be hyper-relevant entertainment that matched their income, status and data profile. The more they engaged with brands, the more data capital they could generate and “spend.”

What I like about this world is the way it solves a problem that has blocked innovation for too long: value that’s currently soft and intangible becomes measurable, bankable and tradable.

Today, data complexity traps innovation. The insights that brands could use to reach consumers more effectively and offer them the engaging content and experiences they crave are locked away in too many third-party intermediaries and platforms. They don’t own the underlying data and often get in the way of a mutually beneficial relationship between brands and consumers.

Empower consumers to control and monetize their data in ways that are platform/ecosystem agnostic and you start to unlock the value of that data. In this future world, everyone can become a data entrepreneur, and trade the “credit” they earn not just in the realm of media and entertainment but across other industries — such as airlines, automotive and food.

Consumers try to sustain an optimal balance between what they need — in the fullest sense — and how much they consume, so they can prosper in a gig economy.

Our ability to find the right balance in life often depends on our ability to make the right compromises — from what we’d like to eat vs. what we know is good for us, to when and how hard we work vs. our desire to slow down or make room for other interests.

One of our teams in LA explored what it would take for future consumers to achieve the kind of life they want more often, while minimizing the kind of sacrifices that made them unhappy or conflicted with their other goals and values.

They modeled a world in which consumers trusted smart platforms to help them function successfully. In a more chaotic gig economy, where traditional work patterns are fractured and income fluctuates, people would use their platform of choice to optimize every aspect of their lives — from how they managed their workflow and finances, to how they traveled around, to how they stayed healthy. People would aim to sustain an optimal balance between what they needed — in the fullest sense — and how much they consumed, thanks to AI.

Each platform would be regulated by government but managed by an ecosystem of businesses. Companies on the platform would tune all their products and services to the nutritional and well-being needs of each individual consumer, in real time.

Consumers in this world enjoy eclectic and fulfilling work opportunities and can sustain wide social circles and enjoy new experiences.

In our “Balanced Life”’ world, people quantified and optimized everything they did and were mindful about what they consumed. Technologies like blockchain meant they could see the full environmental and social impact of their choices, and whether any choice conflicted with their desire to cut resource waste and increase convenience.

While these consumers would spend a lot of their time immersed in this data-informed reality, they would also make a lot of time for “offline”’ experiences, like eating with the family or taking time away from work. They relied on their super-smart artificial intelligence services to suggest choices and experiences that added something to their lives and helped them develop a sense of balanced equilibrium.

With food, for example, there would no longer be a trade-off between what tastes good, what’s good for your health, and what your budget can afford.

Consumption data is also aggregated, so that food suppliers can adjust production based on accurate demand-sensing.

This is a world where people want to eat and live well but want to balance that against the pressures of soil erosion, pollution and water scarcity. In a place like California, where these pressures are becoming acute, the food and beverage industry will play an increasingly important role in the economy and in society.

How companies perform that role will be of increasing interest to consumers, and also to regulators. In our “Balanced Life” world, waste is culturally condemned and is managed in granular detail. The need for sustainable food production and the public health costs associated with a growing population lead to “smart,” data-driven regulation aimed at reducing waste, increasing environmental efficiency and optimizing public health.

1. Make room on your board for a senior executive who understands how data can change everything.

Consumer-facing companies know the value of data. They’ve pioneered its use for decades. But mostly their approach is backward looking. They use outdated, low-utility syndicated POS data, or data locked in a mix of isolated EPR systems and tools.

The future worlds we modeled in LA make clear the need for a chief data officer working at both operating committee and board level. Their mandate should cover three imperatives:

1. Make sure the business meets growing data privacy and global regulatory requirements.
2. Drive the transition from control to commercialization. The organization must have appropriate data governance that also allows it to monetize data.
3. Create a smarter approach to data certification and assurance. Use new algorithms and technologies (AI, IoT, blockchain) to protect the enterprise and the network of consumers and partners.

2. Work out how to give every consumer the unique product, service or experience they want and make money.

The ability to execute personalization at scale is going to become increasingly important. To win in the worlds we modeled, companies must be able to build brands, curate products/services and design/execute customer experiences that are right for the individual and their specific context. Digital marketing technology allows for great advances in providing a tailored individual brand message, but companies need to instill new processes and incentives that drive consumer back product and service development at the individual level.

When AI is doing the buying, more products and services will become commodities. To retain brand value in the face of that shift, companies will need to work ever harder to create highly relevant, personalized consumer experiences that feel natural rather than contrived. Low involvement brands and categories with marginal differential are in peril of being displaced. Massive marketing budgets might not rescue them from simply being bought for functional utility and not for emotive connectivity.

3. Move from a rigid supply chain to a responsive, demand-driven network.

The ability to capture, synthesize and apply a single version of consumer demand is an essential capability in the future worlds we modeled. That view of demand needs to be granular, and it needs to reach every node of a responsive, demand-driven supply network.

Increasingly, the activities that generate demand will be unique for each consumer, as will the products and services a company provides. As a result, it will be critical that a company can leverage intelligent automation and machine learning to drive a more responsive supply chain network that works in real time. This kind of network must be supported by a data and analytics platform.

4. The future will be won outside the traditional structures, thinking and cultural norms that define most companies.

The pace of future change will be so fast that incremental thinking and action will be too slow. Shaping an industry and engaging the future consumer will require market moves that are bold and differentiated. Short-term, quarterly financial metrics create drag and get in the way.

Companies need to find, attract and retain talented individuals and give them the freedom to win. By establishing a culture of intrapreneurship and enablement, new ideas can flourish or fail fast. In a workforce that is increasingly millennial — striving for purpose, autonomy, and creative problem solving — talented employees want a workplace where they can thrive and play a meaningful role in their firm’s survival and success.