San Francisco Seminar 2006
Day 2
Data, services and customer insights in the digital economy
Introduction and context
Day 2 of the seminar took us deeper into the transition from product to service economy, where data, analytics and customer insights form the foundation for value creation. After day 1’s focus on innovation and networking, attention was now turned to how innovation is scaled and measured, and how customer data and digital platforms enable value creation across channels and markets.
The speakers came from leading American technology companies, universities and research groups. The main theme of the day was clear: customer-driven innovation is no longer a marketing ideal, but a technological and organizational system.
Program overview
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Day 2 – Tuesday, March 14, 2006
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Pankaj Gulati – Product Information Management (PIM) Overview
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Heller & Newland (Oracle) – Knowing Customers Across Channels / Retail Strategy
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Institute of the Future (IoFT) – Technology Foresight and Scenario Thinking
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IBM / Spohrer & Service Science Team – SSME: Service Science, Management & Engineering
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SemSuperComputing (IBM WebFountain) – Business Intelligence and Text Mining in Practice
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Main academic topics
PIM – Structured Product Information as a Competitive Advantage
Pankaj Gulati showed how the concept of Product Information Management (PIM) was becoming a key component of digital business strategy. For companies with thousands of products and distribution channels, consistent data is the foundation for efficient commerce, searchability, and customer trust.
He described PIM as “the digital nervous system of retail” – a precursor to today’s omnichannel platforms.
Customer insights across channels
Heller and Newland (Oracle Retail) addressed the challenge of knowing customers across channels at a time when online shopping, physical stores, and customer service operated in separate systems.
They showed how integrated databases and CRM systems made it possible to see the customer as one entity, and not as three different roles: online customer, store customer, and service customer.
This was an early expression of data-driven personalization, and laid the foundation for today's "single customer view."
Institute of the Future – scenario thinking and societal trends
The Institute of the Future (IoFT) paper reminded us that technological development never happens in isolation. The researchers' scenario work showed that digital innovations are changing not only the structure of business, but also the world of work, the social contract, and the role of the citizen.
IoFT challenged participants to think long-term and “design for uncertainty” – a principle that has since become central to innovation methodology.
IBM SSME – Towards a Science of Services
Jim Spohrer and his team at IBM introduced the concept of Service Science, Management & Engineering (SSME). The goal was to develop an academic framework for service innovation, where technology, economics, and psychology meet.
They described how companies had to learn to measure the value of relationships and expertise, not just products and margins. This was a groundbreaking initiative—an early attempt to create a shared science for the service economy.
Super-computing and data analysis - WebFountain
The day's conclusion with SemSuperComputing (IBM WebFountain) demonstrated practical use of massive data processing and text analytics. WebFountain was able to search through huge amounts of text data from the internet and identify patterns in mentions, sentiment, and brand positioning.
This was 2006's precursor to modern AI and NLP technology – a glimpse of the future of data-driven business analytics.
Case studies
Oracle Retail - Customer adaptation in practice
Oracle presented examples of how retailers could use real-time data to optimize promotions, pricing, and inventory management. The lesson was that digitalization is not just about efficiency, but about making the organization intelligent and adaptive.
IBM WebFountain – From text to insight
The case illustrated how technology can create strategic value when data is connected to decisions. IBM showed how text mining could reveal trends before they became visible in traditional analytics – a foreshadowing of social media analytics and online reputation monitoring.
Reflections and discussion:
The discussions among the participants revolved around how Norwegian and Nordic businesses could implement these principles on a smaller scale.
The challenges lay not in the technology, but in the culture: the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, sharing of data, and an understanding that value creation occurs in the interaction between customer, employee, and system.
A key question was: How can we build innovation systems without Silicon Valley capital, but with Nordic trust and expertise?
International perspectives
The lectures emphasized that data is the new currency for global competitiveness.
American companies were already moving towards holistic customer data ecosystems, while Europe was still focused on process and quality improvement.
Several researchers pointed out that Europe needed to develop its own model for service innovation, based on values such as trust, sustainability and social capital.
What did we take home with us?
Much of what was presented on Day 2 is today the very foundation of digital transformation and AI-driven services. The concepts of customer centricity, digital twins and data mesh can be traced back to the ideas of PIM systems, SSME and WebFountain.
Norway and the Nordic countries have subsequently shown how trust and data sharing can be used as a competitive advantage – a direct legacy of these early discussions.
Relevance today
Data and services must be seen as one integrated value chain.
Customer data is a strategic resource, not just a CRM tool.
Innovation must be continuous and rooted in culture, not just in technology.
Academia, business and the public sector must develop a common language for service innovation.
Peder Inge Furseth
Peder Inge Furseth was a central academic driving force behind the San Francisco seminars and helped make the meeting with Silicon Valley relevant for Norwegian and European businesses. Through his role as professor at BI and as academic director of the program, he helped the participants put the lectures into a larger context – where technology, innovation, business development and people had to be seen in context.
In San Francisco, participants met entrepreneurs, researchers, technology leaders and investors from some of the world's most innovative environments. Furseth's strength was his ability to connect these experiences to practical challenges and opportunities in Norwegian businesses. He helped translate Silicon Valley's ideas and working methods into a Nordic context where collaboration, trust and long-term value creation are strong.
Throughout the entire seminar series, he was an important bridge builder between research, business and technology. For many participants, he therefore became more than a professional leader – he also became a mentor who inspired new thinking about innovation, digitalization and commercialization.
Read more about Peder Inge Furseth here
From studies and seminars to today's professional universe
The studies, seminars and field trips documented on this page are part of the knowledge base behind The Invisible Capital. Topics such as customers, technology, innovation, digitalization and value creation have followed developments over several decades – but the disciplines have also continued to develop.
At The Invisible Capital, we are therefore continuing to work on these questions in our own subject series. Here, we connect previous theory, research and experiences with newer knowledge, new technologies and today's challenges for people and businesses.
Innovation
Innovation is not just about new ideas. Value is created when knowledge, technology and ideas are developed into products, services, processes, organizational forms and business models that are actually used. The series on innovation goes from Schumpeter to modern innovation research and covers, among other things, incremental, radical, disruptive, open and user-driven innovation.
→ Explore the Innovation Series
The customer
The customer is not just the recipient of what the business produces. In a competitive market, the customer is a crucial determinant of whether the business actually succeeds in creating value. The series about the customer goes deeper into customer orientation, customer insight, customer experience, satisfaction, loyalty, trust and the encounter between people.
→ Read the customer series
Value creation
What does it really mean to create value – and who creates it? The series on value creation moves from economic theory and key researchers to a broader understanding of how people, expertise, institutions, businesses and the public sector contribute to value creation.
→ Read the series on value creation
Digitization
Digitalization has evolved from stand-alone technologies to a fundamental part of how businesses work and create value. The Digitalization from A–Z series follows developments through internet, web, e-commerce, search, UX, social, mobile, omnichannel, cloud, data, platforms and digital transformation – up to today’s AI First developments.
→ Read the series Digitization from A–Z
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence represents the next chapter in digital evolution. In our own AI universe, we investigate how artificial intelligence works, how AI finds and uses information, how it evaluates sources and websites, and what the development can mean for people, businesses, and value creation.
→ Go to the articles about artificial intelligence
Recommended literature
Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice - Christensen's Jobs Theory for Startups and Business Growth
In this book, Christensen develops the theory of “Jobs to Be Done,” where he argues that people don’t just buy products or services — they “employ” them to solve concrete needs in their everyday lives. The perspective has had a major impact in customer experience, service design, and innovation.
