Master Data Management in Practice: Achieving True Customer MDM

Where Does MDM Lead?

New data management technologies and disciplines emerge to solve existing problems, address new demands, bridge gaps between existing technologies, or to drive innovation and change in the marketplace. Whether that is CRM attempting to better address and manage the notion of customer relationships, or CDI practices driving better integration of customer data, or Customer MDM initiatives bringing together more front-end and back-end synchronization of the customer master data, the overall concept and capability of data management becomes more rounded out as these technologies and disciplines bring more technique and data management practices into play. Regardless of the initial data domain or functional context, good technologies and practices usually find their way into more generalized usage over time.

For example, although CRM initially raised the focus and technique for distinguishing and managing customer relationships, this is not a practice limited to sales and opportunity management functions, nor just CRM technology. Identifying and managing customer relationships now also plays heavily into ERP, customer service, marketing, partner management, or a business intelligence model, and has become a broad underlying factor in Customer MDM in order to drive a customer 360° view. Similarly, CDI technology and practices have evolved from being more BI-centric to use in broader data migration efforts such as in transitioning from legacy applications to a new ...