Customer MDM

Get the most out of your Customer Data

Customer data is one of the most, if not the most, important data asset of a modern-day company. Even though companies realize that, often, consistent and efficient management of that customer data is not properly integrated in those same companies. That can lead to a broad range of problems. Hereunder you will find just a few examples which we encounter at our clients.

A classic example is of course orders being delivered to old addresses because the customer moved and not all your applications were updated with the new addresses. A customer MDM application would solve this problem as it acts as a central registry of your customer which will feed updates to all relevant applications. All downstream applications are kept up to date with the latest customer data.

But new challenges have also been introduced with new regulations. If one of your customers opts out of mailing lists, is that change updated to all systems using that simple flag? Or will your customer still receive unwanted emails? What if a customer wants to be ‘forgotten’, is that an easy thing to do?

And of course, if you are an organization based in multiple locations, each with their own customer-related applications and databases, it can be quite a hassle to not only gather all customer information but also to deduplicate those customers. With a customer MDM system, you get the application that is meant to do just that: gather information from multiple sources and filter out the duplicates. It increases the trustworthiness of your customer data and allows you to make well-founded decisions on your correct BI reports.

Customer MDM Implementation

As you probably noticed in previous software implementation projects, implementing new software and introducing it to the users is not always an easy task. There is more to it than just click “next” > “next” > “finish”. The same goes for a customer MDM solution. Apart from the IT landscape changes this has, we understand that this can have a significant impact on the organization and that you will need support in delivering this to your colleagues across the organization, from management to the business and of course also to IT.

How to get started?

We have good news for you! Since you are reading this, you probably already identified that you have challenges regarding your customer data (management). The first step has already been taken: admitting you have a problem. Check!

At SQLI, we have four pillars that lead to guaranteed success:

• Team
• Data Governance
• Discovery Phase
• Implementation

To start with the first one, the team: we not only make sure you get experts from SQLI, but we also think that there is no ‘us and them’ in a project. We are in this together. We all want to make the implementation a success for you.

At SQLI, we know how important (your) data is. Hopefully, you do too. Either way, we strongly encourage solid data governance. It will support a customer MDM implementation in multiple ways. For example, by having a common terminology, so there is no misinterpretation by different users. Customer may mean something different for the sales department compared to the marketing department for instance. A clear view of policies can help ensure that customer data is handled with the required care and security around sensitive or personal information. And with the correct people having the correct responsibilities, the effectiveness and efficiency of your data management can improve drastically.

Instead of just jumping in the deep end of the pool, we start by doing a discovery phase. In this discovery phase we identify your requirements, align these with a possible software solution and perhaps even direct you in a slightly different direction. We know that what customers want is not always what customers need.

During the implementation of your customer MDM platform, we work in sprints. That way you can easily follow the progress because every couple of weeks we deliver a new update to the implementation and showcase it in a demo. That also allows us to make changes if needed at an early stage when it is still easy to change. Sprint after sprint, you can really see it come to life. Additionally, we insist on user acceptance testing. Nobody knows your organization, your day-to-day operations and processes, and in the end, your customers’ data better than you. So, everything we discussed in the discovery phase and implemented in the implementation phase needs to be evaluated by you as well to ensure the implementation is not just that, but to ensure that the implementation is a success.

Book a Data Governance Assessment

We will help you assess your “as-is” situation and how this can be improved to strengthen company objectives. The assessment will look at what processes and policies are already in place, which roles exist, and how this can be developed further to reap the full benefits of your data. 

Request assessment ➔

Why SQLI?

With over 25 years of experience, and dozens of implementations of different data management solutions under our belt, we dare say we are experts in this field. We understand data management. We know that data management encompasses more than installing a new piece of software. And we ensure organizations actually get the most out of their customer master data management solution.

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