Learning guide: Customer data integration
Welcome to SearchDataManagement.com's learning guide on customer data integration. Here you'll find articles, white papers, advice and resources to help you better integrate and leverage your customers' data at every touchpoint.
Welcome to SearchDataManagement.com's learning guide on customer data integration (CDI). Here you'll find articles, white papers, advice and resources to help you better integrate and leverage your customers' data across the enterprise. From an introduction to CDI-related terms to understanding the innovations in CDI tools and technology, this is your best resource for getting started on the right foot with your customer data integration initiative. Drop us an e-mail to let us know what other learning guides you'd like to see on SearchDataManagement.com.
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More often than not, the answer to the question is: "Which one do you want to know about?" Which means there's more than one customer system of record. Which really means that there is no customer system of record. Which means there's a lot of hard work ahead. A few years back, most companies were deep into implementing operational CRM, focusing on their business processes and automating their workflows. Nowadays, analytical CRM projects promise companies nothing less than strategic differentiation. But reconciling data from heterogeneous and often geographically disparate systems remains one of the biggest challenges. Customer Data Integration will change all this. By applying rigor to the way companies locate, define, match, model, transform, and store their customer data, CDI solutions streamline heretofore labor-intensive, specialized, and manual data integration activities. CDI introduces the concept of a centralized customer data "hub" -- a single repository that can serve as the company's de-facto customer system of record, thereby addressing a wide array of business needs. CDI is not only a boon to companies struggling to deploy CRM, it offers a single source for customer data that's leverage-able across applications, systems, and knowledge workers. I liken it to the change machine at a grocery store. It takes the loose data jangling around the pockets of your organization and, for a relatively small fee, converts it to hard currency. If our CRM projects have taught us anything, it's that we've underestimated the complexity, accessibility, and quality of our customer data. Customer Data Integration promises to not only automate these tasks, but instill the processes and rigor necessary to make them repeatable for a range of different business initiatives—including CRM. And not a moment too soon. Jill Dyche is a partner with Baseline Consulting, a business analytics and data integration services firm. In addition to advising Baseline clients on the strategic use of technology, she is an author of e-Data (Addison Wesley, 2000) and The CRM Handbook (Addison Wesley, 2002). Her forthcoming CDI book will be out in 2006. |
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Think you're a data quality know-it-all? Take our data quality quiz- Definition: Customer data integration
- Definition: Customer lifecycle
- Definition: Data
- Definition: Data aggregation
- Definition: Data integration
- Definition: Data mining
- Definition: Data scrubbing
- Definition: Data value
- Definition: Dirty data
- Definition: OLAP
- Definition: Raw data
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Building a customer data integration strategy
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- Article: Customer data integration evolves to customer hubs, Forrester says
- Article: CRM, data warehouses not the answer to customer data integration
- Article: Customer data mining built up by Northern Tool
- Article: Electronic medical record system gets a leg-up with CDI
- Article: Microsoft tackles its own CDI project
- Article: Building a CDI business case takes careful planning
- Article: Seven reasons customer data integration projects fail
- Article: Strategy, skills keys for CDI-MDM success
- Article: Eight must-ask questions for CDI projects
- Article: Experts address government data problems
- Article: The best practices in customer intelligence
- Article: Oakwood Worldwide strikes a perfect balance with data integration
- Article: XO gives a CDI initiative the kiss of success
- Article: Jelly maker gets out of a jam with SAP
- Column: Extreme makeover -- Data warehouse edition
- Article: Data management market heats up
- Article: CDI pays off for early adopter MetLife
- Column: CDI: The missing piece to the CRM puzzle
- Article: Hospital drives proactive service through data
- Article: Relationships beyond customer relationships
- Article: Five basic steps to a multichannel customer strategy
- Article: CRM's ROI answer
- On-demand expert webcast: Making the data pay: Using customer information as corporate asset
- Article: Expert: Data quality is misunderstood
- Article: Sanlam gets a new look on life with customer data
- Article: Three requirements in a data consolidation project
- Article: Talkin' turkey with dirty data
- Article: The sure-fire insight into customers
- Article: AutoNation solves customer information gridlock
Learn about the market and technology
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- Article: Financial benchmarking helped by CPM, XBRL
- Article: Information Server products touted by IBM at conference
- Article: SOA technology changes the integration game
- Article: Microsoft's must-have customer data integration feature
- Article: Gartner CDI study picks the market leaders
- Article: CDI trends to track
- Article: CIOs seek 'one version of the truth'
- Article: Compliance, maturity drive CDI growth
- Article: Informatica cleans up with Similarity Systems acquisition
- Article: 2005's top 10 stories in CRM and customer data
- Article: Oracle-Siebel deal shakes up CDI world
- Article: Oracle acquisition highlights data management wars
- Article: IBM rolls out first Ascential product
- Article: IBM to buy DWL
- Article: Gartner sizes up CDI field
- Article: Capitalizing on CDI
- Article: Analyze this -- Siebel analytics extends beyond CRM
- News: BI vendors issue new offerings
Advice, reports and white papers on CDI
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- Expert advice: CDI initiative: Where to begin
- Expert predictions: Customer data integration expert predictions for 2007
- Chapter download: Customer data integration: Reaching a single version of the truth
- Expert advice: CDI: Reconciling customer data from across different sales channels
- Expert advice: Optimal data integration performance during the data explosion
- Expert advice: Real-time data access does not equal effective data management
- Podcast: Data management briefing: CDI with Jill Dyché
- Expert advice: TL and CDI, the fundamental differences
- Column: There is no single view of a customer
- Article: Information quality market to reach $1 billion
- White paper: Cutting edge CRM: Use the customer data already in your database
- White paper: Customer data integration: The essential link for customer relationship management
- On-demand expert webcast: Data quality 101 -- What everyone needs to know
- Advice: Essential technical skills of a data warehouse architect
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