This book shows how companies can systematically transform customer data into measurable value – with practical frameworks, use cases, and tools. Whether it’s Golden Record, Customer Data Platform, or AI-powered personalization: contributions from experts in practice and academia provide concrete solutions for data-driven marketing, sales, service, and compliance. The key insight: only the interplay of data-based analysis, human empathy, and clearly structured processes creates sustainable customer loyalty and economic success. Therefore, strategic and organizational prerequisites are also brought into focus.

The edited volume is aimed at professionals and executives in marketing and sales, as well as lecturers, researchers, and students who want to design future-oriented business models using customer data. It invites readers to question existing processes and discover new potential.

"It is rare for practitioners to share their knowledge so openly and systematically. This book does exactly that: experienced entrepreneurs, executives, and data scientists share their expertise. I want to encourage readers to use the insights of this book as a compass – in a world flooded with data yet longing for clear orientation. The strategies and use cases discussed here will inspire you to see Customer Intelligence not as a technical obligation but as a central element of your corporate philosophy. Ultimately, it is not the amount of data that determines business success, but how intelligently it is used."

(Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Hermann Simon, Simon-Kucher & Partners)

Emanuel Bayer is Professor of Business Administration – Marketing Management at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Mannheim and an expert in data-driven marketing. His teaching and research focus on Customer Intelligence and Marketing Analytics. Before his appointment as professor, he worked as a management consultant in the Inhouse Consulting division of Commerzbank, where he explored how companies can leverage their data for customer-centric use cases. He earned his Ph.D. in Quantitative Marketing under Prof. Dr. Bernd Skiera at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research and the International Journal of Research in Marketing. In addition, his work has appeared in practice-oriented newspapers and magazines, including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Harvard Business Review. He has received the prestigious Erich Gutenberg Prize for young researchers and several other awards, such as the HORIZONT Foundation Sponsorship Award and the Paul H. Repplinger Honorary Prize.

Manuel Marini builds data ecosystems that turn numbers into actionable insights. As founder and CEO of Marini Systems GmbH, he has been combining digital sales practices with data science for more than 25 years. After working at international technology companies such as SAP, he moved to Goethe University Frankfurt in 2008 to develop data-driven sales solutions. In 2011, he co-founded Marini Systems with Prof. Dr. Bernd Skiera. Today, the core of the company is the MARINI Customer Data Platform, which connects enterprise systems worldwide, enriches data sources, and delivers reliable insights.
Marini and his team advise companies around the globe, have built an international partner network, and several DAX-listed corporations rely on their services.
Today, Manuel Marini strategically deploys AI agents that autonomously optimize marketing and sales processes – from data acquisition to personalized customer engagement. Together with Prof. Dr. Emanuel Bayer, he developed the Customer Intelligence Evolution Framework (CIEF) and created the Smart Optimized Data Approach (SODA), proven methods that help companies implement digital projects faster, more securely, and with measurable added value.