Johannesburg, 15 Jun 2010
If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you need three factors to be in place:
1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach;
2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution; and
3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem*.
In an era when customers are more important than ever, businesses need to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) to acquire, retain and grow their customer base, all at a suitable price point.
It may appear a relatively simple objective, but in larger companies it can become a severe headache.
A bank`s various divisions, for example, deal with the same customer. The risk and the marketing divisions, to name two, need to know that customers hold a credit card, cheque, savings and car finance accounts with the organisation. But this can be awkward, as each of these divisions runs their own systems and the data is fragmented across these systems.
This is where it becomes important for the bank to manage its "master data", which is another term for reference data. It is descriptive data about a business subject area, like a single trusted list of customers or products.
Master data management (MDM) is the sanctioned set of disciplines, methods, and technology necessary to maintain the meaning, currency and quality of a company`s reference data that is shared across systems and organisations.
It saves organisations money because they don`t market to the same customer multiple times with the same campaign. It helps grow businesses because they can identify and up-sell and cross-sell to existing customers. And it helps retain customers because they feel their provider or supplier knows who they are and what they need.
* With thanks to Seth Godin.
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