CRM - January 2008 - (Page 40)

MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT all enterprise applications and users, only magnifies and multiplies these problems. As a result, enterprises have been stymied in their attempts to deploy MDM, says Jill Dyche, a partner and cofounder of Baseline Consulting. “There’s been a slower adoption curve than we expected,” Dyche says, “especially given the increased maturity of the software. But for those companies that have overcome these deployment woes, the ROI can exceed their wildest expectations.” A staple of any CRM initiative, securing senior-level buy-in is even more critical for an MDM project, especially considering the level of confusion and lack of knowledge surrounding this technology. C-level executives have long been believers in the benefits of data warehousing, which has become the de facto standard among enterprise IT departments for providing the proverbial “single version of truth.” But management’s belief in an existing solution makes taking it to the next level a tough sell. What carries the day is being able to quantify MDM’s added business benefits.“IT wants to push this ‘MDM hub’ concept, and the natural response from business leaders is, ‘Don’t we have that already with data warehousing?’” Dyche says. “Many companies are still approaching MDM from the infrastructure/IT standpoint, and that’s just not as sexy or alluring to the business leader who doesn’t fundamentally understand how it will improve his or her business.” The answer is in quality and breadth, far beyond the sheer volume of data in a data store or warehouse. With one of those, data integrity and validity are optional: The information a data warehouse collects could be good or bad, depending upon the surrounding environment, and lacks the data-standardization, -cleansing, and -reconciliation capabilities inherent to an MDM hub. Any pitches for MDM should play up the business benefits that come with the added functionality. Dyche offers healthcare as a perfect example: “Using MDM we can create a master patient index so our affiliates and partners can all look at the same customer data, or so we can accurately report spending guidelines to the government because we can individualize physician information,” she says. So now, CRM magazine offers the best tips and pieces of advice that industry pundits have to offer in terms of implementing an MDM solution. Many of these tips may have a familiar ring for those who already have CRM deployments under their belt, says James Kobielus, principal analyst of data management at Current Analysis. “MDM is just like CRM: It takes an enterprisewide shift in the way you conduct business to be successful, but done properly, the payoff is huge.” Small Strokes: Keep Things Focused Simply put, MDM projects are big, thanks largely to the scale and number of enterprise applications and data sources they touch upon. The resulting upheaval can be quite disruptive, and will impact users at nearly every level of the organization. That said, rather than trying to boil the ocean with an enterprisewide implementation, many industry pundits now recommend taking a point approach by starting with a particular type of data domain, such as tackling a customer data integration (CDI) implementation or by resolving disparities in product information with a product information management (PIM) solution. Any entry point will be driven primarily by the type of industry your company operates in and the data domains that are most business-critical. These initial gains will form the basis of your ROI, and can then be used as a beachhead into further MDM expansion. “Many times, your initial starting point will expand naturally as you look to include other data sets, such as product information or account and billing data, or other lines of business,” Kobielus says. That starting point—and the eventual expansion— should also drive your vendor selection, Kobielus notes. “If all you want is CDI, guys such as DataFlux should be www.destinationCRM.com [ 40 Management’s belief in an existing data solution makes taking it to the next level a tough sell. ] CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JANUARY 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - January 2008

CRM - January 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Facebook's About-Face On the Scene: Oracle OpenWorld 2007 CRM Market Set to Double Customers, Meet your Makers Required Reading Oh, Behave! Fine-Tuning the Channel Listen Up! The Master Piece Flying High on Customer Service Let's Get Digital The Big Rigs Get Revved Up Putting Asia in Your Pocket Secret of My Success Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - January 2008

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