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Building a Foundation for Customer Data Integration
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What is needed is a centralized repository that consolidates all the customer reference data-along with the cross-references to source systems-into a master reference store. This store then becomes the best source of truth of customer profile information for all operational and analytical applications. More importantly, any solution that builds such a repository needs to have the ability to manage customer reference data through out its lifecycle.
Building a Reliable Foundation of Master Reference Data - Lifecycle Approach
The four lifecycle stages of customer master reference data require these critical capabilities:
- Consolidate: An ability to create or easily import a customer reference data model, map it to numerous data sources, and then cleanse, match and merge source records based on sophisticated rules, without having to write any custom code.
- Manage: An ability to manage the data administration and data content management tasks separately. For instance, IT team manages rules, system configuration and other administrative tasks, whereas a Data Steward (who understands data content) handles the data merge exceptions based on business and data context.
- Share: An ability to provide views from the customer reference data model to all applications that consume the reference data and automatically communicate any changes in the master reference data to all affected applications, as needed.
- Extend: A scaleable solution with low cost of ownership for enterprises requires the ability to efficiently extend the solution to other data sources or eliminate existing data sources (as applications retire or relevant capabilities are phased out) without writing code.
Walk Before You Run
With this foundation of reliable master reference data, the companies can identify customers across systems correctly and combine their transaction data accurately for use by customer-facing employees. By restoring trustworthiness to customer reference data across all applications, enterprises can maximize the return on their CRM investment and be on path to realize the vision of 360º view of every customer. Bottom line: companies need to first learn to walk before they run when it comes to implementing successful customer data integration efforts.About the AuthorAnurag Wadehra is the Vice President of Marketing at Siperian Inc. a leading customer data integration solution provider. The Siperian solution creates the most trustworthy and manageable customer master reference store possible from widely disparate internal and external data sources. It is the foundation for delivering accurate, relevant and actionable 360º customer views. Siperian’s highly manageable and extensible solution enables enterprises to cost-effectively provide trustworthy customer master data to any system or business user, resulting in more efficient and profitable customer relationships, reduced customer data operations costs and increased accuracy of regulatory compliance. Anurag can be contacted at .
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