SOI: The Engines Of The 4th Industrial Revolution

August 5, 2019DATA MINING, DATA VISUALIZATION, DIGITAL STRATEGY, MARKETING AUTOMATION, ROI / ROAS

We are in the midst of the 4th Industrial Revolution. From AI to IoT to machine learning to automation, companies must evolve to survive. Lennar International, the division in charge of bringing the dream of owning a US home to the world for Lennar, a Fortune 200 company, partnered with innovative upstart ONE12th to re-imagine itself as a data-driven, digital-first organization. The Systems Of Intelligence (SOI) connect data to business outcomes in order to maximize efficiency. ONE12th and Lennar International’s Lecia Rothman led the transformation through a System of Optimization, by placing the SOI as the engine at the center of every process. This enabled Lennar International to leverage, and stay one step ahead of, the data-fueled technological advances of the 4th Industrial Revolution… And so can you.

The 4th Industrial Revolution is bringing with it an accelerated pace of innovation, particularly when it comes to the vast troves of data being generated and the technology that is transforming the way we harness that data. At ONE12th, we believe that our historical focus on digital marketing has led us to the forefront of the disruption and opportunity being generated in its wake.

Systems of Intelligence (SOI) is a collection of systems that aggregates all of the relevant first and third-party data in a cloud-based database which is connected to both PII, through CRM, as well as real business outcomes. In the case of Lennar International, we had implemented Salesforce/Pardot combined with other systems in the mar-tech stack. This set of systems allow the International Division to capture inquiries, to then nurture those inquiries based on their geographic and language criteria. Their relevant digital behavior, as well as interactions with a call center, are tracked in order to deliver a personalized, high touch, international home buying journey. The systems qualify inquiries to become MQLs automatically as the inquiries meet certain criteria. At this point, they are put in the care of a human.

The 4th Industrial Revolution focuses on how technologies are interacting with humans’ physical lives. This point in Lennar International’s systems is where the rubber meets the road, and the automated marketing engine drives into the hands of a human, to keep moving forward. These specialized individuals communicate personally with each MQL in order to tailor the home buying journey to their unique needs. Once MQLs are qualified as SQLs, they move seamlessly through the sales process. The data from the final stages of this process continuously sync throughout the international systems so that it can be aggregated and leveraged to optimize demand generation, the automated marketing nurture, the actions of the humans and ultimately, the home sale process itself. And that, our dear friends, is data being put to work maximizing real business outcomes while improving the customer experience.

In order to build a truly Data-Driven / Digital First Organization, having the technology and data flows in place is not enough. Lennar International quickly realized this as it watched the technology advance away from their pre-established operations. It needed to redefine itself around it. 

And who better to take on this challenge than us, the win-win partnership team that dared to build their SOI in the first place. Re-enter Lennar International’s Director of Digital Strategy (“Change Agent”), Lecia Rothman and the ONE12th team.

The System Of Optimization Project (SOO) leveraged a data-first management consulting approach through which ONE12th transformed Lennar International into a digital-first organization. At the center of this organization would be the previously developed Systems Of Intelligence (SOI). 

The first key milestone was the implementation of a scientific brief to foster thoughtful, data-driven ideas both for digital activity and offline initiatives. Due to the “data science” brief, Regional Business Directors were now proactively developing and testing new digital-first ideas. Along with scientific briefs came new customized communication flows and interconnected collaboration tools that fostered these types of ideas. With all of this enhanced focus from the whole organization on data and digital; new nurturing processes, data structures, and team roles were developed, debated and implemented to maximize data use and automation. 

There were a number of key optimizations to the technological architecture. There were custom web services developed in Microsoft Azure to monitor the database for marketing/sales trends from the likes of Facebook, Linkedin, Talkdesk, Google Ads, Salesforce, Pardot, and other sources. KPIs were visualized through Power BI, set certain automated flows in motion and triggered predictive notifications for specific team members in Slack. Additionally, an Idea Management System leveraged Microsoft Onedrive and Slack for the budget approval process and automated campaign/project performance tracking through Salesforce. Last but not least, Slack channels brought in lead information as they progressed through the funnel to enable contextual discussions beyond the sales teams, maximizing collaboration around every international opportunity.

With the conclusion of this SOO transformation project for Lennar International, we are excited to be able to share a lot more about this work, the valuable insights we learned along the way and how they could be leveraged by any organization to position itself to lead in the midsts of the 4th Industrial Revolution. 

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