Interview with Robert Glickman, CMO, Arm Treasure Data

By Sudipto Ghosh On Sep 4, 2018

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/robissimo” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/robglickman/”]

Tell us about your journey into technology. What made you join Arm Treasure Data?

My journey into tech started out of college, where I worked for a small business, for four years, selling restaurant equipment. The reason this was very important was that I met passionate, talented chefs at the top of their game, who were extremely demanding. It was here that I learned the art of serving a customer and this set the foundation of my career.

After my MBA, I started my tech career at eBay where I quickly realized that the standard tenets of business applied universally, and the community-driven supply/demand model of balancing the needs of buyers and sellers globally was a wonderful foundation to draw on. At Symantec and SAP, I focused on learning how very large complex enterprises worked, how they balanced the needs of their customers and their tolerance for changing technology. I lead complex marketing programs that helped shift perceptions towards the cloud, platforms and more flexible software.

I joined Arm Treasure Data because I wanted to get back to a start-up environment where the core product was at the leading edge of technology. The Arm Treasure Data platform directly addresses the struggles that large enterprises face dealing with a deluge of data and fragmented silos as they attempt to compete with more nimble upstarts. This is digital transformation in real time!

What are the core tenets of your business development model? How does Arm Treasure Data add value to Customer Data Platform (CDP) ecosystem?

Arm Treasure Data solves a very important problem that most organizations have today – the struggle with a deluge of data across multiple systems, across multiple silos, and the lack of a single lens to put all their data into context. The customer journey today is incredibly complex. Traditional systems were never designed to handle today’s volume of data and, at the same time, stitch it all together to identify trends. Arm Treasure Data directly addresses this problem and provides a single view across systems and throughout complex customer journeys. This enables companies to understand their customers better and it drives revenue.

How does AI fit into your CDP offering? What are your major differentiators in this tech-heavy ecosystem?

AI is very important to identify trends. Arm Treasure Data leverages the latest artificial intelligence technology by bringing together several machine learning algorithms to make data actionable at scale.

We can identify brand advocates, accurately predict buying behaviors, detect customers likely to churn and deliver relevant recommendations to enhance your 1:1 customer and prospect relationships.

Arm Treasure Data Machine Learning is based on Apache Hivemall, which is a scalable machine learning library that runs on Apache Hive.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a marketing leader?

I see preparing for an AI-centric world as a two-part strategy. On one hand, we must continue to push the limits of AI to drive personalization at scale, improve our ability to leverage technology to simulate human intelligence and help us be better marketers.

At the same time, marketers must double-down on the areas of marketing that cannot be easily replaced by AI – brand, customer emotion and trends; human interactions that augment experiences and set brands apart. Just like any technology, it’s critical that new capabilities – in this case, AI – be leveraged while also applying emotional intelligence, team dynamics and sensitivities. If we don’t use technology to deliver unique and beneficial experiences, then we’re not doing our jobs.

Yes, marketers increasingly utilize AI to automate tasks, improve workflows and understand their customers better. But the real value of AI will be the interplay between leveraging the potential of AI and staying grounded on what makes us uniquely human.

Tell us about the impact of IoT on analytics and marketing? How do you see CMOs preparing in a data-rich tech world?

Increasingly, IoT and device data will account for the majority of customer journey data points. As we see in our daily lives, many things are connected now – and more will be connected soon. Marketers who understand this tectonic shift will be the ones best able to engage with their customers in a holistic manner.

CMOs need to take a hard look at the systems they use, their ability to interpret the data and be prepared to reinvent the way they approach their marketing strategy.

Gone are the days of thinking online versus offline, one channel versus another. We are entering a more complex reality that can only be addressed by extremely robust platforms that can interpret any type of data at any volume and find the data that matters and stitch together the right story.

What are your predictions on the most impactful disruptions in CDP? Tell us more about the “trust tension” that marketers face today.

Customer data will increasingly be informed by device data and the current systems that marketers use are not built for this reality. Consequently, customer data platforms are increasingly becoming a necessary component of the tech stack to allow for the scale, complexity and velocity of data points that need to be connected to inform the customer journey.

The “wild west” atmosphere of how information has been collected, stored and used is over. Trust is at an all-time low. New regulations, recent missteps, and heightened awareness have customers demanding a more responsible, personal and private marketing and sales experience. It’s a watershed moment and companies are struggling to responsibly manage oceans of data to create meaningful customer personas. No one wants to be treated as a series of 1s and 0s. People deserve to be treated respectfully, as human beings.

What startups in the technology industry are you watching keenly right now?

Turo – a car-sharing company that does an amazing job merging the functional requirement of renting a car, with the emotional and aspirational connection people have with cars. They tie it all together with an intuitive, beautiful UI and a platform that delivers a great experience.

Twilio – they make it possible for other businesses to scale and deliver great experiences through their communications platform built on APIs. They celebrate the developer and represent tech innovation.

MapBox – Also developer first, a great alternative to Google and as an open platform, has great potential to democratize tech and reduce dependency on the tech giants.

What marketing and sales automation tools and technologies do you currently use?

We are fortunate that this list of technologies is all integrated with Arm Treasure Data, so we can tie customer data signals together and discover unique insight that would be invisible if we just used these tools in isolation or with light integrations:

Salesforce – CRM
Marketo – Marketing Automation
WordPress – Blog /CMS
Slack – Internal collaboration and Lead notifications
Outreach – Sales follow-up
LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Prospecting
DiscoverOrg – Prospecting, targeting
LinkedIn & Facebook – ABM/TAM targeting
Google Display – Retargeting

Could you tell us about an outstanding digital campaign in your career?

In 2014, I launched SAP’s largest single campaign tour aimed towards the IT audience to drive cloud adoption across the stack. This represented the shift in tech from IT buyers controlling budgets to the business buyer who controls software budgets, and the shift from on-premises to cloud. At SAP, this represented an extreme shift on how we communicated to customers.

The goal was to connect the priorities of IT buyers’ priorities (who had less budget and authority in tech purchases) with line of business buyers who increasingly represented the target buyer in tech. The campaign was a global digital campaign – including offline, out of home, billboards, TV, etc. Success was measured in the revenue of SAP Cloud solutions vs on-premise solutions. That share has now surpassed 25% – a big jump from less than 5% – and it’s growing at a 30% compound annual rate.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

I always strive to encourage my team to realize that there is a balance between technology and human interaction. As we increasingly depend on tech for our work and daily lives, there are constant reminders that the personal aspects of how you comport yourself, treat others and balance the strategic and tactical natures of work, is much more important than the technology you use.

One word that best describes how you work.

Passion

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

Whatsapp, Slack, mobile phone

What’s your smartest work-related shortcut or productivity hack?

Waking up very early and spending a half-hour planning my day

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading “The Death and LIfe of American Cities” by Jane Jacobs.

I scan world and tech news in the morning, often listen to books or podcasts on audible.com during my commute and read the Wall Street Journal.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Give without expecting to receive

Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I can read a room.

Tag the one person (or more) in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Beth Comstock

Thank you, Robert! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

Tell us about your journey into technology. What made you join Arm Treasure Data?

After my MBA, I started my tech career at eBay where I quickly realized that the standard tenets of business applied universally, and the community-driven supply/demand model of balancing the needs of buyers and sellers globally was a wonderful foundation to draw on. At Symantec and SAP, I focussed on learning how very large complex enterprises worked, how they balanced the needs of their customers and their tolerance for changing technology. I lead complex marketing programs that helped shift perceptions towards the cloud, platforms and more flexible software.