Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS FOR CDI

Smart business sponsors and IT managers take pains to ensure that their CDI projects don’t start with a bang and end with a whimper. If there is a business sponsor for CDI, he should not only help to pitch the initial CDI solution, but he should ensure that the project effort is “kept warm” once it’s in development, especially with those who will eventually be using or benefiting from the CDI hub.

Like most highly visible IT efforts, the pitch should continue beyond initial project launch. Those responsible for developing CDI are often also saddled with “selling” CDI to other parts of the organization or business, either because those functions are unaware of CDI or because they need to be convinced of its value. This is ideally done by the business in collaboration with IT.

Indeed, a CDI project will likely have advocacy on the business side as well as support within IT. Gartner’s John Radcliffe confirms that his advisory services involve both sides. “Business users are very often involved in our conversations,” he says. “It’s very common to have both business and IT on the phone together. Sometimes it’s people who inhabit the ‘middle ground’—they originally worked on the business side but now work in IT. It’s fairly obvious that the organizations that have the strongest alignment with business drivers, have a high level of business sponsorship, and have a strong change management capability are going to be the most successful with CDI.” ...