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From real time predictive pricing and personalized (offers) air travel experience to chatbots that recommend upgrades or ancillary services based on the customer profile and consumption habits. AI and big data analytics will allow airlines the adoption of a new business model based on merchandizing and retailing on individual-centered offerings which at the end, will increase airline revenue and customer satisfaction. Lufthansa is using virtual reality headsets to enable passengers to experience the airline’s premium economy class services, seats and legroom before they board, which has sharply escalated the rate of upgrades from the regular economy class. Machine learning automates the collection and processing of huge volumes of data, enabling real time actionable insights that impact internal as well as customer facing processes – introducing unprecedented efficiencies and maximized returns.

If that’s so, it’s safe to assume that the IT function plays an increasingly prominent and visible role in directly interacting with customers. Godin’s point: if IT is driving a business’ customer experience, then marketing – as the function responsible for understanding what the customer wants – needs to be involved in how that experience is delivered. We’ve also spoken with CMOs of F1000 organizations to get their insights on how they’re using marketing and technology to enhance the customer experience, and how they’re measuring marketing ROI when investing in IT. As technology becomes more and more ubiquitous to business strategy, the role of technology in defining and delivering the customer experience similarly expands.

Indeed, Amazon’s new holiday ad featuring talking-logo boxes somewhat creepily implies that the traditional retail experience has already been transformed beyond recognition. And while online sales are growing by 15 percent annually, compared to only 5 percent for brick and mortar, people spend more of their shopping cash in stores (64 percent vs. 36 percent online). While retailers today have multiple opportunities to use technology to drive innovation and deliver a memorable and unique shopping experience, speed of deployment is imperative. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday shopping season will give retailers a fresh set of data with which to evaluate their existing strategies, assess their competitive positioning and begin planning for next year’s holiday season.

For a retailer, say, a website or mobile app that allows shoppers to browse online or locate items in a brick-and-mortar space might be enhanced post-merger by a voice-activated in-store virtual assistant that helps shoppers find just the right item. An integration strategy driven by technology rather than business-focused measures can lead to the proliferation of operational silos that ultimately have a negative impact on the customer experience. For example, from a purely IT metrics standpoint, it might make sense for a retailer to manage an acquired e-commerce entity as a separate business unit with its own P&L. More ominously, if a customer who makes an online purchase returns the merchandise to the physical establishment, in-store staff may have little incentive to resolve the customer’s issue, since the e-commerce entity is viewed essentially as a separate business.