Customer master data management is essential to organizations that are serious about their relationship with their customers. At the core of customer, master data management is some level of assurance on the integrity of the customer master. Many may think they understand the importance of customer master data but don’t understand the wider implications of poor customer master data management for organizational groups and individuals outside of specific teams or in fact the implications of problematic customer master data for the customer.
One of the first problems to be aware of is the potential presence of different versions of the customer master data truth in different systems and places across the organization. This in turn leads to confusion and conflict.
The customer master data management practice introduces roles, responsibilities, and controls but can only enforce them through either auditing and reporting on data management behaviours or by implementing a set of tools or a Customer Master Data Management system (CMDM).
A CMDM helps avoid many of the problems associated with multiple isolated silos of customer data by providing a single source of truth for all systems and all people across the organization. This in turn reduces confusion and conflict and can also be helpful in the improvement of the decision-making process around any single customer or group of customers with common characteristics.
Of course, it also goes without saying, that converging on a single source of truth regarding the customer master also moves an organization closer to eliminating duplicate customer records and improves the overall quality of the customer master. Correction of mistakes made early on in the customer master becomes incrementally more expensive to resolve the longer the records are held unchecked.
it is estimated that 27% of revenue is wasted on inaccurate or incomplete customer and prospect data
The Drum
It should be self-evident then, that customer master data management is essential for any organization that wants to maintain and grow its customer base and enjoy long-term success in the market.
Consider the following benefits that are typically associated with implementing CMDM and improving your overall customer master data management practice.
From a purely cross-functional and operational perspective, any improvement in convergence on a single version of the truth about your customer master data has everyone from the CEO to front-line employees making better informed and potentially more consistent decisions because they are all working off the same accurate information.
The centralized Pretectum CMDM means you will start to avoid or at the very least know more about the reasons you have duplicate records or siloed information. This in turn leads to increased operational efficiency and productivity across your organization.
If you don’t think you need this…
Consider some additional perspectives if you don’t think you need a CMDM.
Are you experiencing high customer churn rates or sagging sales but can’t work out the reason why? In some instances, this is due to the fact that those churns or sags, are in fact duplicate accounts for your active customers.
Do you have challenges finding the most authoritative perspective on your customer master? This is often attributed to multiple silos of customer data with specific purposes and objectives associated with each of them. Your warranty and service system for example may be completely unconnected to the marketing, sales, and billing systems. A CMDM can create a joined-up view for all of them.
Do you have duplicate customer records, do you even know if there are duplicates? Many systems like CDP, CRM, and ERP use very basic ways to avoid duplicate record entry but often the limited criteria that they use for allowing duplicates are so limiting that duplicate record blocking get disabled by default. The Pretectum CMDM allows duplicates but goes a step further by keeping you informed about new duplicates and existing ones and providing you with ways to eliminate or manage them.
If you think you might want to evaluate the potential for the Pretectum CMDM for your organization, consider an evaluation of the approaches that are supported, in the context of your organization’s master data management maturity. Contact us today to learn more