E.ON quits ‘the paradigm of exact measurements’

E.ON is “leaving this paradigm of exact measurements and entering into the realm of modelling”, according to the European energy firm’s chief data officer. 

Context 

At dmexco, Dr Christian Essling, CDO at E.ON, outlined how the company has transformed how it deals with data, upgrading its technology and rethinking its entire data collection process as more customers have enabled privacy options. “We do get a lot of opt-ins,” he explained, “but for those customers where we don’t, we’re basically blind.”

E.ON learnings 

• First-party data is “your only treasure” and its relevance is going to increase over time. Any investment in integrating first-party data will “definitely pay off”. 
• Accept that, because of missing opt-ins, you can’t measure every touchpoint and you will have to rely on projections. 
• Legal and tech often speak different languages so E.ON has integrated dedicated experts into its data team “and while they are no lawyers, they have very sound expertise in data privacy”.

Key quote

“On average, we have three touchpoints with a customer per year, so we’ve really got to make them count” – Dr Christian Essling, CDO at E.ON.

Sourced from dmexco