Consumer-Centric Data Strategies and Leadership Orientation: An Empirical Study of Internal Marketing and Organisational Adaptation in the IT Era

Abstract

Organisations of the IT era work in markets with lots of data flow, changing consumer expectations and constant technological change. So, consumer centric data strategies are now mandatory to understand behaviour, preferences and new demand patterns. They give organisations ways beyond transactional insight to engage with consumers. Data does not drive adaptation though. Leadership orientation is how data are interpreted, shared, translated into organisational action - in internal marketing systems. Consumer centric data strategies affect internal marketing - employee understanding - customer insight. Where organisations share useful data across functions, they make employees aware of consumer needs, organisational priorities. So internal marketing is strengthened because roles are linked to market reality. Leadership orientation determines if data is used for learning, adaptation or just for analytics functions. Leaders who foster openness, cross-functional dialogue and ethical data use give employees insights not directives. Organisational adaptation depends on data strategy, leadership behaviour. So, consumer-focused data may signal a change, but leadership orientation determines response speed, flexibility and coherence. Adaptive leaders use data to guide experimentation, process refinement whereas rigid orientations use data for performance monitoring. Internal marketing helps teams get data-driven understanding to help with coordinated response. It analyses how consumer-centric data strategies work when leadership orientation supports interpretation, communication, action. When data drive shared understanding instead of isolated decision making - adaptation is more likely. In IT era organisations with data-driven insight and supportive leadership orientation build internal marketing effectiveness and capacity to change with the consumer environment. A sample of 271 was collected from different industries. The factors related to Consumer-Centric Data Strategies and Leadership Orientation are Consumer-centric Data strategy, Leadership Orientation, Organizational Adaptation, and Employee Engagement with Data-Driven Culture.