Product Design
Getting Personalization Right – Insights from HBR and Lessons from the Field
What a Harvard Business Review article on personalization taught me about the gap between strategy and execution — and what I learned firsthand at McAfee.
A Harvard Business Review article, 'Personalization Done Right' by Mark Abraham and David Edelman, lays out five core principles: empower me, know me, reach me, show me, and delight me. Spotify is held up as a model — using AI and vast behavioral data to deliver seamless, cross-platform experiences that feel genuinely tailored.
Aspirations vs. Reality: My Experience at McAfee
At McAfee, the ambition to personalize existed. But the infrastructure to support it didn't. Ideas about delighting users stalled before they started, because we didn't have a deep enough understanding of who our customers actually were or what they valued. The aspiration was there; the data foundation wasn't.
This gap between vision and execution is common. Personalization isn't a design problem or a marketing problem — it's a data problem first. Successful personalization starts with knowing your customer: who they are, what they need, and where they are in their journey.
Personalization as a Strategic Investment
Organizations that treat personalization as a long-term investment — rather than a quick feature add — tend to build experiences that earn genuine loyalty. That requires grounding efforts in robust customer insights before designing anything.
"Successful personalization starts with knowing your customer — not your product."