DMA HK: Eileen Tang on how Maxim's breaks down data silos with AI

In today’s fragmented digital landscape, consumers interact with brands across multiple channels, making it increasingly challenging for businesses to decode customer behaviour and reach potential audiences. In Hong Kong, only 16% of brands strongly agree that they have sufficient data to truly understand their customers, and just 19% believe they possess a comprehensive customer profile, according to a study by Twilio.

Compounding this issue, 78% of brands in the region rely primarily on third-party data due to a lack of robust first-party data—significantly higher than in other markets. As the industry prepares for a cookieless future, this overreliance could undermine competitiveness and personalisation efforts.

To address this, Hong Kong Maxim’s Group—which operates a wide portfolio of restaurant brands ranging from fast food and bakeries to premium Chinese and Western dining—has adopted a consolidated customer relationship management (CRM) strategy. According to the company's head of digital business Eileen Tang (pictured), the company is leveraging AI as an intelligent orchestrator to unify data across diverse brand touchpoints and enhance customer understanding.

This builds on the group’s previous traditional in-store model, with thousands of locations offering diverse cuisine and generating vast amounts of transactional data siloed in point-of-sale (POS) systems. Each brand operated with separate systems, creating isolated data streams that made it nearly impossible to understand customers' complete dining preferences and cross-brand behaviours, said Tang.

“For example, understanding a customer's complete journey from in-store dining to online ordering required manual data reconciliation across multiple systems, often taking weeks to complete,” she added. 

Moreover, the group’s “Eatizen” app also created separate data streams that were difficult to correlate with offline behaviours, leading to three bottlenecks: lengthy manual data analysis, over-reliance on technical teams, and delays in actionable insights.

Using AI to unify siloed data into a single customer profile

Recognising that customer data was trapped in brand silos, preventing the group from understanding customer behaviour, Tang said the digital team has now established AI-powered agents to tackle these challenges. One solution is the "AI data dashboard agent", built on Microsoft Copilot Studio, which allows non-technical users to generate customised reports using natural language processing, eliminating delays in IT requests.

“Simultaneously, our 'AI marketing memo agent' streamlines access to thousands of promotional documents and configurations, instantly retrieving critical campaign information,” she added.

Utilising AI, advanced machine learning algorithms automatically correlate vast data points in real-time, integrating transaction history from all the group’s brands, app behaviour from Eatizen, communication preferences, and cross-cuisine engagement patterns. The AI continuously processes data from the group's Hong Kong restaurant network, creating comprehensive customer profiles that span multiple dining occasions.

This has led to reduced report generation times, faster data retrieval, and considerable annual manpower savings, according to Tang. “Most importantly, AI enabled real-time integration between our CRM systems and both digital and physical touchpoints, creating unified customer profiles that drive personalised experiences across all channels."

Ensuring trust and data privacy in AI-driven omnichannel systems

While employing AI-driven omnichannel systems, transparency remains central to the group’s customer relationship philosophy, according to Tang. Its AI implementations prioritise ethical deployment through continuous monitoring systems that prevent algorithmic bias and ensure fair treatment across diverse customer demographics. Furthermore, the Eatizen app and its various touchpoints clearly explain how customer data enhances the overall experience—from personalised dining recommendations to optimised delivery timing.

“Customers maintain granular control over their data preferences and communication channels, with explicit consent mechanisms for each data usage purpose,” she said.

Meanwhile, when customers interact with the AI-powered systems—such as Eatizen's WhatsApp automation for order processing—they always have accessible touchpoints to reach customer support agents, ensuring that no customer feels trapped in purely automated experiences.

Operationally, Tang said the group has established rigorous data governance protocols that exceed regulatory requirements. Regular third-party audits verify the group's compliance standards, while its vendor selection process prioritises partners with demonstrated expertise in privacy-first AI development, reflecting the group's commitment to maintaining the highest data protection standards.

“By making transparency and choice fundamental design principles rather than compliance afterthoughts, we've built sustainable competitive advantages that enhance customer relationships and support our continued innovation in AI-driven personalisation,” Tang said.

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