From where he's standing
A day in the life of the PEGA project
Rui Mota (Online & CS&T Analyst) went behind the scenes of the Vodafone PEGA project.
This isn’t going to be a regular day at the office, in fact it’s not even the office I usually work in. Today my goal is to discover “PEGA”.
Arriving at the Vodafone Office, I am welcomed, just a few moments before a ceremony, which is the moment in which the Team gathers around the Kanban board and discusses where they are and where to move today.
This all seems very simple, it’s a board, it’s post-its, it’s a Team talking about success and failure. It’s a normal day at the office, at their office, in their life, that I’m about to understand.
What is the PEGA project?
PEGA is a transformation project that started in September 2018, it’s not a simple thing. In fact, it’s a complex transformation and it will change technology as well as people’s mindset: CSRs in Call Centers, Store Agents, Management and Customers.
The objective is to change the campaign management system that is used today, mainly what some of us know as Siebel Marketing to “PEGA” system. This is not only changing a piece in the architecture, it affects the CRM, Integration and even the Catalogue. Moreover, it will change the way that outbound and inbound campaigns are set and what they offer.
What is the main objective?
This is not as simple as it seems at first sight, and the Team gave me the needed insight.
PEGA is a mindset change from Segmented Campaigns to an Always on Marketing approach. This means that instead of running campaigns one by one, separately, starting with a product and then segmenting customers , PEGA looks first at customers and then, based on previous interactions, behaviours, customer profiles etc., it chooses the next best offer sent via the best channel, while always considering the Contact Policy and GDPR Permissions.
Nowadays, what we have is a starting point that can be a product and that will be offered to Customers, the final goal is to change this into a system that starts from collected information to cover a Customer’s need and offer him/her a more suitable product. It’s totally Customer centered.
Today we start from the offer, in the future we will start on the Customer, this is basically setting priorities straight!
Can we consider this an easy task?
It’s definitely not an easy task.
During a Team meeting, I was invited to, it was clear that there are several challenges are on the table. The first being - this is totally new!
The PEGA project Team is discovering PEGA! For Celfocus and Vodafone this is also a learning process, but it is clearly a field of discovery that can become a visit card for other Opcos/Clients.
And as if this was not enough, there will be a period where both systems will be live and running at the same time, they should not collide. We need to bear in mind that GDPR has brought more complexity to systems that manage Customer sensitive data, and this data is everywhere in these kind of systems.
At this point, I was taking this very seriously but all around I had a Team with a smile on their face, they are very conscious of the implications and the difficulties, but they also show control in their actions, and know exactly how to mitigate risk.
Who are they?
This project is under Celfocus’ Analytics team and if this some how reminds you of BI reporting, please FORGET THAT!
The Analytics team is delivering transformation projects, the same way that Online delivers CRM and Self Care, these are complex projects with great amount of work, and very honestly the day to day with them makes it seem easy.
They work as a Team, you will feel welcome and moreover they are ready to explain the objective and the road ahead, even if, just like me, you’re not an expert in data analysis systems.
If you want to know more about the PEGA project they are in Vodafone building 3rd floor, they have a nice view, good coffee and the most surprising mood, find them there until June 2020.
