Adobe expands open data initiative with Microsoft and SAP

As part of the Open Data Initiative (ODI), Adobe, Microsoft and SAP aim to deliver a new approach for publishing, enriching and ingesting initial data feeds from Adobe Experience Platform, activated through Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Office 365 and SAP C/4HANA, into a customer’s data lake. This will enable a new level of AI and machine learning enrichment to garner new insights and better serve customers.They also plan to convene a Partner Advisory Council comprising more than a dozen companies including Accenture, Amadeus, Capgemini, Change Healthcare, Cognizant, EY, Finastra, Genesys, Hootsuite, InMobi, Sprinklr and WPP. These organisations span a wide variety of industries and customer segments and according to Adobe, believe there is significant opportunity in the open data initiative (ODI) for them to drive net new value to their customers.One mutual consumer that intends to simplify a previously complex business outcome based on these data connections is Unilever. Through the ODI, it plans to bring together disparate customer, product and resource data and use AI-driven insights to help reduce their plastic packaging and encourage consumer recycling. By eliminating the silos of data, Unilever will be able to tie inventory and plastics data into Adobe data to enhance customer experiences and encourage participation, the press statement read.The ODI was announced last September by the three companies to help marketers transform their customer experiences through real-time insights delivered from the cloud. It aims to help consumers create new connections across previously siloed data, more seamlessly garner intelligence, and ultimately better serve brands with an improved view of their customer interactions. The ODI is also focused on enhancing interoperability between the applications and platforms of the three partners through a common data model with data stored in a customer-chosen data lake.