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 a product-based to a service-based economy, where data, analytics, and customer insights form the foundation for value creation. Following Day 1’s focus on innovation and networks, attention now turned to how innovation is scaled and measured, and how customer data and digital platforms make it possible to create value across channels and markets.
The speakers came from leading U.S. technology companies, universities, and research institutions. The central message of the day was clear: customer-driven innovation is no longer simply 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 for the Future (IFTF) – 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
Main academic topics
PIM – Structured Product Information as a Competitive Advantage
Pankaj Gulati showed how 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 understanding customers across channels at a time when e-commerce, physical stores, and customer service operated in separate systems.
They showed how integrated databases and CRM systems made it possible to view the customer as a single entity rather than as three different roles: online customer, in-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 for the Future – Scenario Thinking and Societal Trends
The presentation from the Institute for the Future (IFTF) reminded us that technological development never takes place in isolation. The researchers’ scenario work showed that digital innovations change not only the structure of business, but also the world of work, the social contract, and the role of citizens.
IFTF challenged participants to think long term and “design for uncertainty”—a principle that has since become central to innovation methodology.
IBM SSME – Toward a Science of Services
Jim Spohrer and the IBM team introduced the concept of Service Science, Management & Engineering (SSME). The goal was to develop an academic framework for service innovation, bringing together technology, economics, and psychology.
They described how companies needed 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 unified science for the service economy.
Supercomputing and Data Analytics – WebFountain
The day concluded with SemSuperComputing (IBM WebFountain), demonstrating the practical use of massive-scale data processing and text analytics. WebFountain could search through enormous volumes of text data from the internet and identify patterns in coverage, sentiment, and brand positioning.
In 2006, this was a precursor to modern AI and NLP technologies—a glimpse into the future of data-driven business analytics.
Case Studies
Oracle Retail – Customer Personalization in Practice
Oracle presented examples of how retailers could use real-time data to optimize promotions, pricing, and inventory management. The key 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 decision-making. IBM showed how text mining could uncover trends before they became visible in traditional analyses—a precursor to social media analytics and online reputation monitoring.
Reflections and Discussion:
The discussions among the participants focused on how Norwegian and Nordic businesses could implement these principles on a smaller scale.
The challenges did not lie in the technology, but in the culture: the need for cross-functional collaboration, data sharing, and an understanding that value creation takes place through the interaction between the customer, the employee, and the system.
A central question was: How can we build innovation systems without Silicon Valley capital, but with Nordic trust and expertise?
International Perspectives
The presentations emphasized that data is the new currency of global competitiveness.
U.S. companies were already moving toward integrated 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 We Took Home With Us
Much of what was presented on Day 2 now forms the foundation of digital transformation and AI-driven services. Concepts such as customer centricity, digital twins, and data mesh can be traced back to ideas behind PIM systems, SSME, and WebFountain.
Norway and the Nordic countries have since demonstrated how trust and data sharing can be used as competitive advantages—a direct legacy of these early discussions.
Relevance Today
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Data and services must be viewed as one integrated value chain.
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Customer data is a strategic resource, not just a CRM tool.
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Innovation must be continuous and embedded in the culture, not just in technology.
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Academia, business, and the public sector must develop a shared language for service innovation.
Peder Inge Furseth
Peder Inge Furseth was a key academic driving force behind the San Francisco seminars and played an important role in making the encounter with Silicon Valley relevant to Norwegian and European organizations. Through his role as a professor at BI Norwegian Business School and as academic director of the program, he helped participants place the presentations within a broader context—one in which technology, innovation, business development, and people had to be understood together.
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 with practical challenges and opportunities facing Norwegian organizations. He helped translate Silicon Valley’s ideas and ways of working into a
Nordic context where collaboration, trust, and long-term value creation play a central role.
Throughout the seminar series, he served as an important bridge between research, business, and technology. For many participants, he therefore became more than an academic leader—he was also a mentor who inspired them to think differently about innovation, digitalization, and commercialization.
Learn more about Peder Inge Furseth here
From Studies and Seminars to Today’s Knowledge Hub
The studies, seminars, and academic trips documented on this page form part of the knowledge base behind The Invisible Capital. Topics such as customers, technology, innovation, digitalization, and value creation have been part of this journey for several decades — while these fields have continued to evolve.
At The Invisible Capital, we continue exploring these questions through dedicated knowledge series. Here, earlier theory, research, and experience are connected with newer knowledge, emerging technologies, and today’s challenges facing people and organizations.
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 put into use. The series on innovation traces the field from Schumpeter to modern innovation research and explores incremental, radical, disruptive, open, and user-driven innovation.
→ Explore the Innovation series
The Customer
The customer is not simply the recipient of what an organization produces. In a competitive market, the customer is a decisive factor in whether an organization actually succeeds in creating value. The series on the customer explores customer orientation, customer insight, customer experience, satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and the human interactions that shape the customer relationship.
→ Explore the Customer series
Value Creation
What does it really mean to create value — and who creates it? The Value Creation series moves from economic theory and influential thinkers to a broader understanding of how people, knowledge and skills, institutions, organizations, and the public sector contribute to value creation.
→ Explore the Value Creation series
Digitalization
Digitalization has evolved from individual technologies into a fundamental part of how organizations operate and create value. The Digitalization from A to Z series traces this evolution through the internet, the web, e-commerce, search, UX, social media, mobile, omnichannel, cloud, data, platforms, and digital transformation — leading up to today’s AI-first era.
→ Explore the Digitalization from A to Z series
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence represents the next chapter in the digital evolution. In our dedicated AI knowledge hub, we explore how artificial intelligence works, how AI finds and uses information, how it evaluates sources and websites, and what this development could mean for people, organizations, and value creation.
→ Explore the articles on Artificial Intelligence
Recommended Reading
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 “Jobs to Be Done” theory, arguing that people do not simply buy products or services—they “hire” them to address specific needs in their everyday lives. This perspective has had a significant impact on customer experience, service design, and innovation.
