Brands that will win in the new economy are the ones that understand their customers better, and are able to craft the best experiences based on customers’ needs and context. The world of one-size-fits-all is gone today.

This is a transformation in the manner in which customers interact with businesses, and it’s starting to become the norm. Customers are expecting this level of sophistication from all businesses.

That said, it’s not about deploying the best personalization technology, or the best analytics suite. It’s about bringing all of these together to provide a holistic picture of the customer, and crafting the best experiences to influence customer experiences across all channels—ultimately providing an integrated experience.

The process starts with understanding your customers better, and at a deeper level. For example, understanding that your most loyal customers are women between the ages of 30 and 40, who use tablets is just a starting point. Getting the insight is useful, but it doesn’t really go far if you do not know what action to take with it.

The next step is to ask “how can I determine how to engage these customers more,” “how do I acquire more of these customers?” and “how do I change my website experiences so as to serve the customers better?”

And the only way that’s feasible today is by combining actions with insights.

You see, managing data, storing data, and processing data is irrelevant if it cannot transform customer experiences. Data—such as information on what the customers did on the website and how they responded to emails—and the customer experience are invariably coupled together. And only by mining all the wealth of data that’s available can you deliver the kinds of relevant experiences that today’s consumers have come to expect.

Kartik Hosanagar is Monetate’s chief scientific advisor. He is responsible for data integrity of Monetate’s statistical analysis, and advises the company’s data teams in the use of mathematics and optimization. He is also a tenured Associate Professor of Internet Commerce at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is on Twitter as @enabletech.