All Things Data

Master Data Management and Customer Retention

In these economic times, organizations are focused intensely on customer retention and preservation.  A key part of preservation is an organization’s ability to gain repeat orders or contract renewals with their existing customers.

As people and not institutions are the one who make buying decisions, it is mandatory for organizations to communicate with all of the contacts at their customer locations who are involved in buying decisions.  However, every day on the news you hear more and more about company layoffs.  Further, the economic situation is predicted to get worse before it gets better and therefore some key contacts may no longer be at the company.  Consequently, it is critical for an organization to have a data integration/data management strategy to make sure that you are able to communicate with all influential contacts at your customers.

Master Data Management or Customer Data Integration software can help you correlate all of the contacts that you have with an organization.  These contacts could be spread across multiple data sources and the same or related contact and entity names can be presented in a variety of different ways.  If your key contact at a company leaves, it’s imperative that you have backup contacts at the organization so that you can continue the relationship.  Further, it’s important that you do not wait to communicate with the influencers at an organization until your key contact leaves because at that point it may be too late to build the relationship.  Additionally, an organization cannot rely on its sales reps to be the sole builder of the relationships with the additional contacts.  The sale rep may not be focused on building the relationships with all of the influencers.  Further, if the sales rep leaves your organization and the customer contacts are not correlated in the database, then the client contacts and relationship may be lost forever.  In these uncertain economic times, the risk of the loss of an existing client relationship is not one that an organization can afford to take.

Master Data Management and the Top 10 Business Priorities in 2009 (Part 2)

Today, I will finish commenting on the remaining Top 10 Business Priorities in 2009 from the Gartner EXP Worldwide Survey and how they relate to CDI/MDM.  For the introduction and discussion of the some of the Priorities that I had commented on Monday, please see Part 1.

Priority #5 Increasing the use of information/analytics

One of the dirty little secrets of business intelligence tools is that you cannot use them across multiple data silos unless the data is properly correlated.  Even with single data sources, counts of organizations and contacts are not going to be accurate if the entities and contacts have multiple contacts, multiple locations, lack of data uniformity for organization and contact names, and data entry errors for the same entity or contact in your data files.  The matching algorithms from a CDI/MDM solution match and link the same and related entities and contacts and correlate the data by hierarchies based on the solution’s numbering schema.  Without a correlating numbering schema, the business intelligence tool cannot properly report counts and provide business intelligence based on information using a combination of separate data silos.

Priority #6 Creating new products or services (innovation)

There are many ways that an organization can go when it comes to creating new products and services.  Typically, an organization wants to leverage its existing customer base, service capabilities, or something else related to the organization when developing a new product or service.  Analyzing an organization’s data is the key to understanding where the opportunities for leverage exist.  The CDI/MDM solution’s ability to correlate data so that report counts are accurate and information from separate data systems can be combined for reports are critical in performing the analysis that will help determine the new product or service and how it is marketed, sold, and delivered.

Priority #7 Targeting customers and markets more effectively

A CDI/MDM solution can help with targeting customers and markets more effectively in many different ways.  Here are some examples:

1. By properly counting the number of contacts for an account or prospect that meet the criteria for follow-up, unnecessary expenses of sales and marketing follow-up with duplicates or other contacts who do not meet the criteria can be eliminated. 
2. By properly counting the number of customers, prospects and linking information located in separate data sources (firmographics, products purchased, revenue earned, contract renewal dates, outstanding service issues, etc.), decisions on target marketing can be made more effectively.

Priority #8 Managing change initiatives

Similar to my commentary on Priority #1 Business Process Improvement, CDI/MDM software’s ability to properly count and to utilize information from multiple data sources can play an important role in measuring and managing the change initiatives that have been targeted for improvement.

Priority #9 Expanding current customer relationships

A Single Customer View across separate data sources (sales, financial, customer service, external data, etc.) can help a sales rep see the opportunities for up-selling.  Further, if the sales rep can see all the organizations and contacts that are related to a customer as part of the Single View of the Customer, the rep now has the opportunity to cross-sell to those related entities and contacts.  Similarly, marketing can use the Single Customer View to develop up-sell and cross-sell campaigns. 

Other departments, such as customer service and accounting, can also use the Single View of the Customer to help build relationships with current customers.  For example, customer service reps that see in another data source that has been linked that a proposal is being considered by a customer, can take even greater care than usual with that customer.  Accounting, if they spot an issue with customer service, may want to inquire first before sending out a payment past due notice.
 
Priority #10 Expanding into new markets and geographies

Analysis of internal data assets along with external data is critical in determining where to make investments in new markets and geographies.  Proper counts of customers, prospects, and suspects combined with information such as revenues, SIC codes, and other information that is found in separate data sources provides the insight as to what markets and geographies have potential for successful expansion.  A CDI/MDM system makes the counting and querying across systems possible.

Top Technology Priority in 2009

One final point, the Gartner EXP Worldwide Survey also stated that Business Intelligence is the Top Technology Priority in 2009.  As mentioned above under Business Priority #5, to increase the use of information/analytics across separate data silos data needs to be correlated by a numbering schema.  CDI/MDM applications make the data correlation happen so that you can get the most out of your Business Intelligence applications.
 

Master Data Management and the Top 10 Business Priorities in 2009 (Part 1)

I was recently referred to the Gartner EXP Worldwide Survey of more than 1500 CIO’s by a newsletter from DMReview.

According to the survey, IT spending in 2009 is expected to be flat as companies are investing in some areas and pulling back in others.  Further, according to the survey, the Top 10 Business Priorities in 2009 are:

1. Business process improvement
2. Reducing enterprise costs
3. Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness
4. Attracting and retaining new customers
5. Increasing the use of information/analytics
6. Creating new products or services (innovation)
7. Targeting customers and markets more effectively
8. Managing change initiatives
9. Expanding current customer relationships
10. Expanding into new markets and geographies

The overall theme of the survey is that CIO technology priorities will concentrate on gaining more value out of existing assets.

As the purpose of Master Data Management and Customer Data Integration is to help organizations realize more value out of its existing data assets, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss how CDI/MDM fits in with The Top 10 Business Priorities in 2009.

Today, I will focus on a couple of the Top Business Priorities for 2009 and how they relate to CDI/MDM and tomorrow I will finish commenting on the remaining Priorities.

Priority #1 Business process improvement

The other Priorities in the Gartner Survey are specific areas of Business Process Improvements.  My comments on these specific areas address how CDI/MDM software’s ability to properly count and to utilize information from multiple data sources can play an important role in determining what business processes to improve and how to go about doing so. 

Priority #2 Reducing enterprise costs

I recently posted a blog entry, Master Data Management and Rightsizing the Business, on this very subject.  In summary, matching and linking using a CDI/MDM solution’s numbering schema is the key to generating proper counts, such as number of customers and prospect, and querying information from separate data sources.  This information can help determine the maximum expense consolidation to manage profitability. (How many sales reps, service personnel, service locations, etc. do I need?)

Priority #3:  Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness

In a previous post, I had written, Increase Effectiveness with a Common ID.  In summary, CDI/MDM systems enable reports using information from separate data sources that are more accurate with proper counting.  This enables better planning and decision making.

Priority #4:  Attracting and retaining new customers

CDI/MDM can help attract and retain new customer in several ways.  Here are just a couple of examples:

1. If the prospect is somehow related (subsidiary, division, other location, etc.) to an existing customer, the system can link the prospect with the current customer enabling sales and marketing to use the existing relationship to help with the new sale. 

2. If the prospect has had contact with customer service, the solution’s Single Customer View will enable the sales and marketing team to see the information that is correlated with the prospect and use it in order to help close the sale. 

3. Analysis across multiple data sources can help understand your customer profiles and trends to develop programs and campaigns to obtain and retain customers.

Master Data Management and Rightsizing the Business

In these difficult economic times, it’s important to cut expenses where ever possible.  But how do you know what and how much to cut?

The answers are in your data.

Your data can tell you many things such as:

1. How many customers and prospects that you have?
2. How much revenue by customer, sales territory, and market segment?
3. Where your customers and prospects are located?
4. How effective are certain marketing campaigns?

The answers to these questions and many others are the keys to making decisions regarding the allocation of resources.  Here are some examples:

• Knowing the proper number of customers and prospects and current and potential revenue by markets or territories lets you know how many sales reps, service personnel, service locations, and other expenses that can be consolidated to manage profitability.

• Knowing that someone you sent a direct mail piece has responded either by mail, by phone, through your website, or in-person is critical in understanding whether the campaign should be continued and how much budget should be allocated to future campaigns.

However, there are many challenges to utilizing your data to get the answers to these types of questions.  Here are some of the challenges:

1. Multiple records exist for the same or related customer or prospect entity or contact due to multiple contacts, multiple locations, lack of data uniformity for organization and contact names, and data entry errors for the same entity or contact in your data files.  This makes it difficult to properly report counts and eliminate duplications.  Over counting may result in a missed opportunity to reduce expenses.

2. Information is contained in separate data files such as the initial mailing campaign file, and the related responses by the mail, the web, by phone, and in-person.  The respondents may use different representations of their contact and organization names for the different response vehicles.  This makes it a difficult task to track the initial mailing with the actual results.

Customer Data Integration or Master Data Management software can help properly count the multiple representations of the same or related entity or contacts and correlate records that are contained in separate data silos through matching algorithms.  With the matching and linking via the software’s numbering schema, proper counts can be generated and information from separate data sources can be queried.  This information can help determine the maximum expense consolidation to manage profitability.