Chapter 4: Shifting Paradigms in Modern Marketing¹

‘As a major producer and user of data, marketing can create knowledge value by collaborating with IT and data science team’ (Rodrìguez-Vilà, Bharadwaj, ­Morgan, & Mitra, 2020). Starting from such consideration, the chapter presents the way marketing can exploit digital transformation and succeed. In this way, a new paradigm for modern marketing emerges that is data driven and predictive.

The terms Digitisation, Digitalisation e Digital Transformation are often used as synonyms, despite their different meanings. To point out the main differences, we refer to the term digitisation to define the shift from analogic to digital and it represents the first phase of the transformation. Digitalisation is instead the second phase and it refers to the use of digital technologies in the process. According to Gartner (2019), it is the use of these technologies with the purpose of modifying the business model to provide new ways of generating value. Lastly, Digital Transformation is the broadest term embracing the whole organisation and not just a specific function or process. It represents a customer-driven strategic business transformation which requires a cross-the-board change and the implementation of a wide range of digital technologies (Bloomberg, 2018). Digital transformation entails all the IT innovations and the digital optimisation of new business models. Maltaverne (2017) describes it as the identification of new ways of doing things that generate new sources of value. Such transformation has its roots in the use of the Internet technology to make the value creation process more efficient (Reddy & Reinartz, 2017). The adoption of a digital transformation process leads to a more and more flexible organisational model, able to allow the company remain competitive in the market. To accomplish this, a technological, but also organisational and cultural change, is needed, and it aims at reaching the integration of all the new technologies required to accelerate growth.