Automation An automation-first mindset is essential as companies build the technology to support mass personalization. The sheer scale of people and data they are working with makes automation essential – take, for instance, Shazam versus the record shop: one is scalable; the other is not. Another example of personalizing offerings at scale comes from a telco we are working with in India. Cellphones are, in most cases, an extension of the person who owns them, which means that one-size-fits-all plans, with their fixed amounts of data and minutes, are no longer fit for purpose. With this in mind, in partnership with the telco, we have created a ‘build-your-own’ service, which allows customers to set the amount of minutes and data they expect to use over a given period, and earmark the times and days they expect to use them the most. These combinations of choices could vary wildly: this is mass personalization in action – and it all relies on automation. The manpower needed to configure just a handful of personalized telecom service plans would be significant; on this scale – millions of customers – it can only be achieved through automated technology. This automation-driven offering drives customer satisfaction and retention, which is highly sought after in the subscription-based telecom world. 9