Customer data is one of the most important assets that an organization has. It can be very hard to manage and track all of this data, so it’s vital that you find a solution for managing your customer data effectively.
As an IT manager or business data owner, your primary goal should be to provide service and support for customers in a way that will make them want to continue doing business with you.
Master data is a term used to describe the most important business data that exists in an organization. It is stored in one or more databases and may consist of many different types of information, including customer records and product information. Master data is also sometimes known as reference data or transactional data because it’s used as a reference point for other types of data within your organization (e.g., customer name, address or contact info).
Customer data’s criticality to marketing
Customer data is the foundation of every marketing effort. It’s what you use to segment audiences, hone your message and build a strong brand. Correctly targeted audiences are more likely to engage, convert or remain as customers, and ultimately improve your business.
With the best possible customer data, you can reach new audiences with personalized experiences that resonate with each individual customer. You can identify opportunities for growth by analyzing historical trends and making predictions of future needs. You can make smarter decisions about product development and sales initiatives based on real insights into what matters most to your customers—and then act on those insights with relevant offers at the right time and place.
Managing customer data
Managing customer data is key for any successful marketing efforts. The customer data asset is a collection of data elements that are managed and controlled by the enterprise. These assets have some business value, but they don’t have any value in isolation. To be useful, they need to be integrated into your systems so that you can use them effectively in applications and services.
An asset is a resource controlled by an organization that has a positive effect on its ability to operate or produce cash flow. Assets can be tangible or intangible, and tangible assets are further classified as current (held for less than one year) or noncurrent (held for more than one year). Examples of current assets include cash, marketable securities, accounts receivable, and inventory; examples of noncurrent assets include fixed assets like buildings and equipment. Data is often referred to as an intangible asset.
What is a Data Asset?
Data asset. The term is used to describe both a data file or collection of data files and the value that an organization receives from the collection, management, analysis, and sharing of data.
A data asset is any non-financial information that provides value to the organization. They can include anything from customer demographic data, customer behavior, investment data, sales data and Web site usage patterns, and other operational metrics. Data assets are becoming increasingly important as organizations generate more information than ever before.
A key advantage of considering data as assets is that they provide actionable insights into operational issues that translate as value-adding or cost-reducing. This means that you can make better decisions about how to improve your business based on data about what works (or doesn’t) in terms of marketing strategies or product development initiatives.
A simple example would be an Excel spreadsheet containing sales transaction information. This kind of asset has value because it makes it easy for people in different departments to understand what’s happening with their respective products or services (for example marketing can use it to calculate ROI).
A data asset can include any non-financial information that provides value to the organization. “Data assets” may range from information about customer demographic data, customer behavior, investment data, sales data, and Web site usage patterns, and other operational metrics.
There are many different types of data assets, including:
- Customer demographic data
- Customer behavior
- Investment data
- Sales data
- Web site usage patterns and other operational metrics.
The two layers of customer data
Transactional data is the first layer of customer data. It’s what you have when you know what people have bought and when they’ve bought it. Master data, in contrast, is all about understanding customer potential behavior: What could this particular person do? What influences their decisions?
This information can be used to create customer profiles that are useful for marketing efforts or product development. For example, if transactional data shows that one person always buys a certain kind of clothing but never buys any accessories with it—and then another individual always buys accessories with their clothes—you might conclude that people who buy a certain type of garment are more likely to buy associated products than other types of garments (but not necessarily so). This would be an important piece of information for marketers because it implies there may be an opportunity for growth in accessory sales among these customers.
Understanding the layers
The biggest challenge in the enterprise is understanding these customer data layers. There are many different types of data, but not all of them carry equal value to your business.
This is where you need to understand the differences between data assets and master data.
Data assets are the most granular of all three types of data and represent individual records that contain information about your customers or assets involved in day-to-day operations. They include everything from emails, images, invoices, and documents to social media posts and tweets – basically, anything that can be stored electronically. A good example would be an email address: This is a specific piece of personal information about a person (the ‘customer’) which could be used by you as part of personalization campaigns or targeted offers/sales promotions etc.
What is Master Data?
Master Data is the consistent and uniform set of identifiers and extended attributes that describes the core entities of an enterprise including customers, prospects, citizens, suppliers, sites, hierarchies, and chart of accounts.
In the context of Customer Master Data Management (CMDM) we are concerned with identifying the core set of customer master data entities in the organization and providing a controlled vocabulary to describe the customer. CMDM also includes processes for maintaining this information in a central repository in order to facilitate its reuse across the enterprise.
Solving CMDM problems with Pretectum
Pretectum is a leading SaaS solution targeted at customer master data management. The solution helps companies manage their customer data and marketing campaigns with a particular focus on the elements of Data Quality & Master Data Management (MDM).
Getting started
To start, you need to identify the core entities that make up your data asset. The following questions can help you identify these entities:
- What is the core data entity of our business? (e.g., customer)
- How are these objects related to each other? (e.g., customer has many orders)
Next, you’ll want to identify all the attributes associated with the customer entity and their relationships with other entities. This will help provide clarity on which attributes are required for reporting and governance purposes as well as what data needs to be sourced from various systems or partners in order for them to be populated into a single repository. Finally, define any business rules or constraints that need to adhere to within this model like maximum lengths for field names or whether certain fields are mandatory or optional for data entry purposes
This blog focused on Master Data Vs Data Assets. We discussed how you can use Pretectum to solve customer data management problems to learn more, contact us today.