From Data to Data Source: The Transformation of Pico
- By Winston Thomas
- September 29, 2023
Fareeda Cassumbhoy lives and breathes transformation.
The group chief digital officer for Pico, a regional company that styles itself as a brand activation expert, always sees herself on a constant journey toward self-improvement.
She is studying for a doctorate focusing on digital transformation and even published a paper on the evolving subject. “I, myself, transformed at least three times from an advertising person to someone who deals with media online and running a data technology center managing programmers and developers,” says Cassumbhoy.
This belief in self-improvement helped her steer the over 50-year-old Singapore-born Pico through digital transformation and become a frontrunner for data-driven experiences. It’s one of the main reasons why she was eventually headhunted in the first place and has never stopped transforming.
“I joined this company in April 2018, which feels like yesterday,” she adds.
Making the digital case
When Cassumbhoy joined, event management and brand activation were largely manual activities. Digital tools were there to automate and aid each project.
She wanted to change this and immediately saw the value of digital and AI in making these efforts more efficient.
Cassumbhoy has been here before. She grew the business into a billion-dollar [in HKD] revenue company in her previous digital marketing gig. She knew that whatever digital path a company takes, success comes down to one word: “conversion.”
Cassumbhoy realized that Pico had to get their formula for experiential activities right to do conversion effectively. Standing in her way were legacy systems and processes, which differed across offices. Old attitudes and resistance to change also formed significant hurdles.
So, the first thing Cassumbhoy did was “remove the legacy system.” She did not start with the technology; instead, she established a new digital leadership team.
The technical leadership and top support helped untangle the legacy systems and inherent technical debt complexity. Strong companywide digital literacy and advocacy programs aligned all departments on their responsibilities and what digital means to them.
Cassumbhoy strongly believes that convincing different departments to standardize on a single software needs “a top-down approach.” While the advantages of streamlining management, reducing costs, and simplifying patch upgrades might seem obvious, many departments have grown attached to their “home-grown” applications and systems.
“So, the first thing we did was to convince them and at the same time make it a top-down initiative. And the more they use it, the more they will get used to it. It becomes a habit,” Cassumbhoy reflects.
Cassumbhoy then created a digital vision. She did not have to look too far. “I saw our digital offers as the engine to propel our digital journey.”
She then extended this approach with a companywide data strategy to standardize the various logic, processes and catalogs.
Architecting the digital compass
Cassumbhoy understood very early that any technology, “no matter how shiny,” needs to make business sense from the onset.
“First of all, we are not a technology company; we are also not a software company. We help the client to implement or do project management and install interactive [elements],” she explains.
However, Cassumbhoy felt data analytics should become one of Pico’s core competencies, giving the company a differentiator.
So, she sat down with her team to create a proprietary measurement called Pico ExQTM, which is the IQ of an experience. Today, it is their foundational platform.
“So it’s kind of like the brand measurements by above-the-line agencies, but for below-the-line activities carried out locally,” says Cassumbhoy.
ExQTM gave Pico the direction it needed. Whether it was running an event or creating a pop-up store, the metric highlighted the success of each project in terms of data.
Pico’s decision makers and its clients could now analyze this data to visualize success or tweak for improvements. New algorithms also linked conversion to below-the-line activities more closely, allowing Pico’s teams to learn better from past projects.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been pushing ahead and teaching the project team to collect data at the right moment, then do analysis and provide a value-added service to our client,” says Cassumbhoy.
As a result of this data-driven feedback loop, Pico became more efficient in driving multiple projects. “But now, with the measurements, we are able to win business much faster, but at the same time, give us multiple projects because we can compare the previous years or quarters to the next one.”
The solid digital and data infrastructure is also helping Pico’s creatives adopt various AI-driven tools to become more productive. While Cassumbhoy admits that new advances like generative AI currently help with ideation and creativity, she believes the journey is still more important as it offers vital lessons and experience for an AI-led future.
Yet, for Cassumbhoy, becoming efficient was only the start. She wanted to go beyond incremental improvements and offer a new value proposition. This called for digital-led business transformation.
The data future
The idea hit Cassumbhoy when she was knee-deep in transforming her various processes and applications.
She saw most of Pico’s activities involving data collection, from events to other brand initiatives. Yet, this data is often collated, cleaned, processed and labeled upfront for data analytics.
As a data user, Cassumbhoy saw value in this treasure trove of raw data that the company collects. With generative AI going mainstream, companies find it challenging to identify trustworthy data sources.
“So, my ultimate goal is to turn our company into a robust third-party data source and become part of the data ecosystem marketplace,” she concludes.
In an AI world where labeled, trusted data is a luxury; it’s a goal worth transforming for.
Winston Thomas is the editor-in-chief of CDOTrends and DigitalWorkforceTrends. He’s a singularity believer, a blockchain enthusiast, and believes we already live in a metaverse. You can reach him at [email protected].
Image credit: iStockphoto/dickcraft
Winston Thomas
Winston Thomas is the editor-in-chief of CDOTrends. He likes to piece together the weird and wondering tech puzzle for readers and identify groundbreaking business models led by tech while waiting for the singularity.