The digital economy will thrive on customer connections and empowerment, says Adobe India's Nitin Singhal

The recently concluded Adobe Summit showcased new innovations across the Adobe Experience Cloud and demonstrated how businesses can transform their customer experience by engaging with Adobe. Business Insider India caught up with Nitin Singhal, Managing Director, Digital Experience, Adobe India, to find out how the company is enabling businesses to ride the digital experience wave, alongside the company’s vision for the future.

Lately, with the onset of a hybrid world, most organizations are accelerating the adoption of digital to become future-ready and offer the relevant consumer experience. How is Adobe working towards redefining this customer experience for organizations?

Reflecting on the transformational time that the last year has been, we’ve all experienced the power of digital technology as it has radically changed the way we live, learn, work, and play. In the face of the continuously evolving dynamics and challenges, digital experiences have played a vital role in making every aspect of our lives possible – from keeping families and coworkers connected, to enabling new ways of learning, to powering digital commerce and ensuring continuity of essential business operations. Ours has grown to become a digital-first world, and from here, there is no looking back.


Adobe’s mission – to Change the World through Digital Experiences – has never been more relevant than it is today. With Adobe Experience Cloud, we’re powering digital businesses of all sizes, giving them everything they need to design and enable great customer experiences at scale.

How is Adobe enabling businesses as the current situation unfolds?

The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation journeys of businesses across industries and ensured that all business strategies are leading with a digital-first approach.

In education, digital has unlocked new forms of learning and is removing barriers to access. When teachers had to quickly rescope lesson plans in a remote learning environment, we powered our customers’ online learning support in a matter of days.

The telecommunications industry has been mission-critical in providing the infrastructure to keep the world connected and running. Adobe Experience Cloud is enabling telcos to deliver real-time experiences for real-time results – the new reality that every business will need to compete in.

Financial institutions have had to reimagine customer transactions in a digital-first world. Adobe is working with HDFC Bank in India to make their banking experience digital, enabling customers to perform an array of actions across devices, from opening a bank account to applying for a loan or managing investments.

In healthcare, the convergence of science and technology is enabling transformational patient experiences. Our global teams are working with Pfizer to deliver data-driven experiences for patients and healthcare providers on critical information, such as the latest vaccine developments.

In the aviation sector, which has been an early adopter of digital, we helped airlines like IndiGo to further customer experiences, accelerate business decisions through automation and really enable the lives of people during the lockdown.

As e-commerce become the primary way to purchase goods, we worked with Nykaa - India’s largest online beauty store, to super charge their ecommerce strategy and deliver personal care items that customers needed at home.

These stories are just some examples of Adobe’s reach and impact across every industry and dimension of life.

Adobe recently concluded its flagship digital experience conference – Adobe Summit 2021. What was the focus as part of this year’s event and your top takeaways?

This year, we transformed Adobe Summit to a digital experience for people around the world and created a platform for brands to become a part of the very relevant conversation around the role of digital in enabling customer experiences.

As always, Summit saw a range of strategic announcements from Adobe, many of which will pave the way forward for the industry. We announced the next generation of our Real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP), the only enterprise application architected from the ground up for first-party data- driven customer acquisition and engagement. Adobe Real-time CDP helps brands activate known and unknown customer data to manage the entire customer profile and journey seamlessly in one system, without the need for third- party cookies.

We also introduced several innovations across Adobe Experience Cloud, unveiling new enterprise applications with Adobe Journey Optimizer and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, industry-leading Marketing System of Record through the integration of Workfront, and new Adobe Experience Platform capabilities to deliver real-time personalization at scale. Additionally, we announced new content and intelligent commerce capabilities, including a strategic partnership with FedEx.

Discussed much at Summit, why is there a need for a strong partnership between the CIOs and CMOs?

It has been over a decade since Adobe created the digital marketing category, foreseeing the convergence of art and science and serving the untapped needs of the CMO. Today, digital marketing has unlocked a new world of data. As businesses rearchitect their systems around the customer, only businesses with a strong partnership between the CMO and the CIO will thrive.


We have been hearing much about the downfall of third-party cookies. What is Adobe’s vision and plan here to help its customers in a cookieless world?

Third party cookies are being phased out and that is set to bring several implications for the marketing industry and digital experience as a whole. As we move into a cookieless future, there will be a greater emphasis from brands on building consumer trust, first-party data will be a priority, and Real-time personalization will take the centre-stage. Adobe thus aims to offer its consumer a direct control of their data while helping them curate personalized brand experiences.

While these trends are likely to put marketers in a flux, Adobe has unveiled its all new Real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP). Bringing the industry’s first CDP architected for first party data, it acts as a centralized hub, and helps build a customer's profile over time. As the name suggests, it works real-time and steadily monitors user behavior, leveraging AI and ML to trigger registration or consent from the customers at the right time. With this, we are excited to be partnering with brands to deliver relevant, responsive and respectful experiences through first-party data.

What are your thoughts on how the Digital Economy will pan out in the near future?

It’s been clearly established that our present and future are all about digital. This digital-first era will continue to shape our lives - from keeping friends, family and colleagues connected, to powering digital commerce and continuity of essential business operations. Looking ahead, digitization will be key to keeping economies and businesses running, and potentially even emerge stronger.