Could you tell us about your role and journey into technology?

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with technology, and specifically communications-related technology, from a very young age; I’m still quite proud of being an adopter of the pre-browser internet. Over time, I developed and managed databases, including coding of SPSS, SAS, and then sites using good old ColdFusion and early HTML. While at Disney, I started leaning more toward web experiences; between Fox and eHarmony, I became fully immersed in both using and managing marketing based on technology platforms.

You’ve had a long track record of successfully working in diverse Marketing teams. How did you arrive at Globality and what attracted you to the business?

I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in businesses that were always meaningful to customers’ lives, but even within that, Globality’s mission definitely piqued my interest. Disruptive and innovative, the mission also attracted and rallied phenomenal investors and board members and an amazing staff. While there are many lofty missions by many companies, realizing Globality’s mission—unlocking world-class services to help companies create a more inclusive global economy—will truly change the world for the better, and in a significant way.

How do you see business messaging platforms further disrupting Customer Support, Sales, and Marketing and Communications channels?

I believe these messaging platforms could continue to remove friction from facilitating true dialogue between customers and businesses, which is obviously a positive trend for both parties. Receiving ongoing and immediate feedback from customers can only improve the offering and quality of businesses, creating stronger loyalty and engagement by all customers.

Which Marketing, Sales, and Customer Support technologies do you leverage at Globality? 

We utilize multiple tech tools including HubSpot, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Workfront, Box, Slack, Outlook, Adobe Creative Suite, Confluence, Camtasia, and others.

What Marketing-related challenges do you meet every day? How do technology and collaboration tools help you to overcome these? 

Pursuing a drastically significant yet highly disruptive opportunity means moving incredibly fast—we’re constantly learning from customer feedback and incorporating it into how we approach our Marketing. An analogy I love using is that we try to operate like the Blue Angels—not communicating effectively while flying a thousand miles per minute alters the team’s overall alignment; that could mean your partners and team can find themselves on different continents very quickly, or, worse yet, crashing into each other because of overlapping flight paths. I believe collaboration tools are key, but they must be anchored around the right processes and a healthy culture of open and honest communication.

What would be the most memorable Marketing Technology moment of the decade?

I believe that companies in the roaring 2020s that truly adopt and integrate AI into their processes will experience never-before-imagined growth. On top of that, they’ll drive significantly better, more relevant customer experiences.

What solutions and integrations does Globality offer to CIOs and CMOs? Which geographies and industries are you currently targeting?

At Globality, we offer a game-changing Platform for all CXOs around the world by enabling them to precisely and securely source any project with highly vetted service providers on our network and their incumbent providers. That helps them all, regardless of industry or sector, maximize their spend effectiveness and expedite their speed to market through an improved, transparent, digital process.

What are your predictions on the role of AI and Chatbots to scale Customer Service and Lead Generation, and how do you see these capabilities leading to quicker adoption of Business Process Management software? 

I think Chatbots will evolve to become tools that truly add value to businesses and their customers. By the end of the decade, the true “imitation game” may be won by the machine, in which a user would not be able to distinguish between a person or computer on the other side of their interaction. If anything, I think bots will be able to provide so much value that customers will prefer further interacting with such tools. For lead generation, I believe AI will not only change the rules of the game but also change the game itself.

Instead of the standard Marketing “funnel” in its highly narrowing pyramid shape, the ability to target through Predictive Analytics driven by AI (that no one human—or an army of humans, for that matter—could achieve) will make that pyramid more of a diamond shape, in which your targeting starts with high specificity, expands in the middle through amplification and facilitating word of mouth through social platforms, and then narrows again to engaged customers.

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

AI engines are here; they can and will be improved, of course, but the technology is actually mostly here. Their fuel, however, is data, and that is what every marketer must prepare for—clean, usable, translatable data that can be applied in a pragmatic way by technology trained to make the best assessments, recommendations, and decisions.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

Integrating technology into our process falls right in line with our values—innovation, collaboration, and trust—and we hope that the proprietary technologies we create will soon transform the way people around the world conduct business.

One word that best describes how you work. 

Agile.

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

LinkedIn, Outlook, Slack, and whatever app I’m currently using to turn family trips into Ken Burns documentaries.

Which superhero character/movie do you most profoundly relate to:

Thanos . . . kidding! Captain America, for doing the right thing and adjusting to circumstances (also, very cool shield).

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

Full transparency—there’s no time for anything else because everything else just wastes time in the end.

What are you currently reading?

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

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

When you put your people first—be they employees, clients, or users—great business is bound to follow.

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

Not sure it’s better than others, but I think what helped me is related to “strong opinions loosely held.” It’s the ability to be passionate about the work that you’re doing without being so precious as to miss out on a great insight

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

I’m going to cheat and tag three: Julie Liegl, Scott Eagle, and Robert Chatwani.

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